1.Military Veterinary Institute,Academy of Military Medical Sciences,Changchun,China;2.Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Chengdu Military Region,Kunming,China;3.Yunnan Institute of Endemic Diseases Control and Prevention,Dali,China;4.School of Urban and Environmental Sciences,Northeast Normal University,Changchun,China;5.Jiangsu Co-innovation Center for Prevention and Control of Important,Animal Infectious Diseases and Zoonoses,Yangzhou,China
Abstract:
Bats have been implicated as important reservoir hosts of alpha- and betacoronaviruses. In this study, diverse coronaviruses (CoVs) were detected in 50 of 951 (positive rate 5.3%) intestinal specimens of eight bat species collected in four provinces and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China by pan-coronavirus RT-PCR screening. Based on 400-nt RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) sequence analysis, eight belonged to genus Alphacoronavirus and 42 to Betacoronavirus. Among the 50 positive specimens, thirteen gave rise to CoV full-length RdRP gene amplification for further sequence comparison, of which three divergent sequences (two from a unreported province) were subjected to full genome sequencing. Two complete genomes of betacoronaviruses (JTMC15 and JPDB144) and one nearly-complete genome of alphacoronavirus (JTAC2) were sequenced and their genomic organization predicted. The present study has identified additional numbers of genetically diverse bat-borne coronaviruses with a wide distribution in China. Two new species of bat CoV, identified through sequence comparison and phylogenetic analysis, are proposed.
