Bats and rodents play crucial roles in the transmission of zoonotic diseases, such as SARS coronavirus and Ebola virus. In some countries and regions along the Belt and Road Initiative, where public health infrastructure is relatively weak, monitoring and controlling infectious diseases face significant challenges. Understanding the evolution and transmission modes of viruses in wildlife is a critical step in early warning and prevention of future pandemics.
To address this, a collaborative research team from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, BGI-Shenzhen, and the University of Queensland conducted a large-scale viral surveillance of 959 bats and 372 rodents in Kenya and Uganda, countries along the East African Belt and Road. Utilizing the BGI's T-series sequencing platform, the team revealed the diversity, recombination, and interregional transmission characteristics of viruses in these wild animals through metatranscriptomic sequencing. The findings were published on April 10th in Microbiome.
The team identified a total of 251 RNA or DNA viruses associated with bats or rodents, with 87% being novel viruses, revealing a high degree of diversity and uniqueness in viruses in the East African region. Of note, a virus closely related to human influenza B and human molluscum contagiosum virus was discovered in Egyptian fruit bats.
These findings are not only important for understanding the origins of such viruses but also provide crucial clues for studying their transmission mechanisms.
Generally, viruses require a high genomic diversity to ensure sufficient adaptability when invading different host cells.
The study showed that coronaviral spike proteins responsible for invading host cells and arenaviral envelope proteins exhibited a high degree of diversity in both bats and rodents, and frequent genome recombination occurred among viruses, which may explain why these viruses can switch between various hosts.
Further analysis by the researchers revealed frequent recurrent mutations within the viral community, co-infections of different genotypes within virus species, and viral flow between regions, collectively catalyzing the formation of diverse natural viral communities and providing important information for understanding how viruses spread across different ecosystems.
It is understood that this study, supported by the Global Pathogen Database Project, aims to detect and discover potential human-infecting pathogens from the genomic level in animals. By the end of 2026, it aims to support various research teams in obtaining genomic data of pathogens from at least 50,000 animal samples, identifying new zoonotic pathogens, identifying pathogen distribution hotspots, and predicting potential cross-species events.
"This study provides comprehensive genomic and ecological data resources for the viral spectrum of important natural reservoir hosts such as bats. The team will continue to build a pathogen data platform, integrating multidimensional information such as various pathogens, wildlife, and ecology, to provide big data support for national biosecurity prevention and control and monitoring and early warning of natural epidemic sources," said Wang Daxi, the first author of the article and associate researcher at BGI-Shenzhen.
