Distant Relatives of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus and Close Relatives of Human Coronavirus 229E in Bats, Ghana

Abstract

Hipposideros spp. bats harbor a coronavirus that shares common ancestry with human viruses.

Persistent or long-term coronavirus infection in Australian bats

“…In agreement with other studies 15,28,29 , it appears that the site had an increased prevalence of coronavirus when used as a maternity colony (during the mark-recapture study and exactly one year prior), as opposed to other times (three months prior) when no coronavirus was detected and no pregnant females were observed.…”

“…Similarly, a correlation between the detection of coronaviruses in female bats associated with maternity colonies has also been established 28,29 . The colony used in our study had been selected for its ease of access and the high affinity of bats to the roost, providing a successful recapture rate.…”

Highly diversified coronaviruses in neotropical bats

“…As shown in Table 3, the novel CoVs were also unrelated to any known CoV from humans or other animals, with amino acid sequence distances ranging from 12.1 to 39.0 % in comparison with all defined CoV species. This contrasted with Old World bat CoVs for which zoonotic transmission to humans likely occurred, exemplified by SARS-related viruses in rhinolophid bats in Asia (Drexler et al, 2010;Lau et al, 2005) or HCoV-229E-related viruses in hipposiderid bats in Africa (Pfefferle et al, 2009).…”

“…Recently, a sixth HCoV was described, causing illness in at least 49 confirmed cases by 29 May 2013 (WHO, 29 May 2013;Zaki et al, 2012). Close relatives of this betacoronavirus termed MERS-CoV and of HCoV-229E exist in Old World bats and HCoV-NL63 could be grown in immortalized bat cells (Annan et al, 2013;de Groot et al, 2013;Drexler et al, 2010;Huynh et al, 2012;Lau et al, 2005;Pfefferle et al, 2009), demonstrating the zoonotic potential of previously reservoir-bound bat CoVs. The recent description of a bat CoV related to MERS-CoV in Mexican bats (Anthony et al, 2013) emphasized the relevance of investigating neotropical bats for CoVs.…”

“…The majority of these CoVs originated from African, Asian and European bats (Chu et al, 2006;Drexler et al, 2010Drexler et al, , 2011Gloza-Rausch et al, 2008;Pfefferle et al, 2009;Poon et al, 2005;Quan et al, 2010;Tang et al, 2006;Tong et al, 2009). In addition to SARS-CoV, four human coronaviruses (HCoVs), termed HCoV-OC43, -229E, -NL63 and -HKU1 are known (Drosten et al, 2003;Fouchier et al, 2004;Gaunt et al, 2010;Hamre & Procknow, 1966;McIntosh et al, 1967;van der Hoek et al, 2004;Weiss & Navas-Martin, 2005;.…”