Published 2024
| Version v1
Journal article
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Substantial viral diversity in bats and rodents from East Africa: insights into evolution, recombination, and cocirculation
Creators
- Wang, Daxi
- Yang, Xinglou
- Ren, Zirui
- Hu, Ben
- Zhao, Hailong
- Yang, Kaixin
- Shi, Peibo
- Zhang, Zhipeng
- Feng, Qikai
- Nawenja, Carol Vannesa
- Obanda, Vincent
- Robert, Kityo
- Nalikka, Betty
- Waruhiu, Cecilia Njeri
- Ochola, Griphin Ochieng
- Onyuok, Samson Omondi
- Ochieng, Harold
- Li, Bei
- Zhu, Yan
- Si, Haorui
- Yin, Jiefang
- Kristiansen, Karsten
- Jin, Xin
- Xu, Xun
- Xiao, Minfeng
- Agwanda, Bernard
- Ommeh, Sheila
- Li, Junhua
- Shi, Zheng-Li
Description
(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) Background Zoonotic viruses cause substantial public health and socioeconomic problems worldwide. Understand‑ing how viruses evolve and spread within and among wildlife species is a critical step when aiming for proactive iden‑tification of viral threats to prevent future pandemics. Despite the many proposed factors influencing viral diversity, the genomic diversity and structure of viral communities in East Africa are largely unknown.
Results Using 38.3 Tb of metatranscriptomic data obtained via ultradeep sequencing, we screened vertebrate-asso‑ciated viromes from 844 bats and 250 rodents from Kenya and Uganda collected from the wild. The 251 vertebrateassociated viral genomes of bats (212) and rodents (39) revealed the vast diversity, host-related variability, and high geographic specificity of viruses in East Africa. Among the surveyed viral families, Coronaviridae and Circoviridae showed low host specificity, high conservation of replication-associated proteins, high divergence among viral entry proteins, and frequent recombination. Despite major dispersal limitations, recurrent mutations, cocirculation, and occasional gene flow contribute to the high local diversity of viral genomes.
Conclusions The present study not only shows the landscape of bat and rodent viromes in this zoonotic hotspot but also reveals genomic signatures driven by the evolution and dispersal of the viral community, laying solid ground‑work for future proactive surveillance of emerging zoonotic pathogens in wildlife.
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Additional details
Identifiers
- URL
- hash://md5/e3677c214c7613f1045fdc4a3050a358
- URN
- urn:lsid:zotero.org:groups:5435545:items:6WSZFARQ
- DOI
- 10.1186/s40168-024-01782-4
Biodiversity
- Class
- Mammalia
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Order
- Chiroptera
- Phylum
- Chordata