Genetic diversity and ecology of coronaviruses hosted by cave-dwelling bats in Gabon

Archive ouverte

Maganga, Gael, Darren | Pinto, Anaïs | Mombo, Illich, Manfred | Madjitobaye, Mankomra | Mbeang Beyeme, Antoine Mitte | Boundenga, Larson | Ar Gouilh, Meriadeg | N’dilimabaka, Nadine | Drexler, Jan Felix | Drosten, Christian | Leroy, Eric, M.

Edité par CCSD ; Nature Publishing Group -

International audience. Little research on coronaviruses has been conducted on wild animals in Africa. Here, we screened a wide range of wild animals collected in six provinces and five caves of Gabon between 2009 and 2015. We collected a total of 1867 animal samples (cave-dwelling bats, rodents, non-human primates and other wild animals). We explored the diversity of CoVs and determined the factors driving the infection of CoVs in wild animals. Based on a nested reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, only bats, belonging to the Hipposideros gigas (4/156), Hipposideros cf. ruber (13/262) and Miniopterus inflatus (1/249) species, were found infected with CoVs. We identified alphacoronaviruses in H. gigas and H . cf . ruber and betacoronaviruses in H. gigas . All Alphacoronavirus sequences grouped with Human coronavirus 229E (HCoV-229E). Ecological analyses revealed that CoV infection was significantly found in July and October in H. gigas and in October and November in H . cf ruber . The prevalence in the Faucon cave was significantly higher. Our findings suggest that insectivorous bats harbor potentially zoonotic CoVs; highlight a probable seasonality of the infection in cave-dwelling bats from the North-East of Gabon and pointed to an association between the disturbance of the bats’ habitat by human activities and CoV infection.

• Description
• Sujet/Public
• Outil
• Outil d'anticipation
• Mémoire et thèse
• Gestion