Serological evidence of exposure to a coronavirus antigenically related to severe acute respiratory syndrome virus (SARS‐CoV‐1) in the Grey‐headed flying fox ( Pteropus poliocephalus )

Abstract

Coronaviruses (CoVs) are of critical importance to public and animal health and many appear to have origins in bats (Latinne et al., 2020).To date, over 200 novel CoVs have been found in bats worldwide (Bannerjee et al., 2019). CoVs typically have a narrow host range (Wong et al., 2019), although host shifting does occur (Cui et al., 2007;Drexler et al., 2014;Forni et al., 2017). CoVs can adapt rapidly to new ecological and host niches due to their propensity for recombination (Drexler et al., 2014) and the high mutation rates of their RNA genome (Holmes & Rambaut., 2004).Severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by SARS-CoV-1, for which Chinese horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus sp) are the likely res-

Serological evidence of a pararubulavirus and a betacoronavirus in the geographically isolated Christmas Island flying‐fox ( Pteropus natalis )

“…Molecular analysis and isolation attempts did not detect pararubulaviruses or other paramyxoviruses; however, sample sizes of the preferred sample type for paramyxovirus detection were small (urine n = 19 and urine swabs n = 25; includes 13 duplicate samples in VTM). Additionally, the X-TAG multiplex molecular bead assay used here is highly specific to targeted viruses (Boyd et al, 2015) known to exist in mainland Australia and neighbouring countries; A recent survey demonstrated bAb to a betacoronavirus in 42.5% of Australian grey-headed flying-foxes tested using the same proteins and MMIA used in the present study (Boardman et al, 2020a). Although a different statistical approach was used, the betacoronavirus serology thresholds estimated for CIFFs (SARS-CoV-1 lnMFI 6.65 and 6.91)…”

“…Serum or plasma was screened for antibodies against the paramyxoviruses (CedV, HeV, NiV, MenV and TioV), the betacoronaviruses (SARS‐CoV‐1 and MERS‐CoV), and a lyssavirus, ABLV, at the CSIRO ACDP using multiplex microsphere‐based immunoassays (MMIA) (Luminex Corporation, Austin, TX, USA) as described previously (Boardman et al., 2020a , 2020b ; Bossart et al., 2007 ; Boyd et al., 2015 ; Burroughs et al., 2016 ; Dovih et al., 2019 ; Edson et al., 2019 ; Laing et al., 2018 ; Peel et al., 2012 , 2013 ; Prada et al., 2019a , 2019b ; Schulz et al., 2020 ). Briefly, a recombinant, soluble, tetrameric MenV haemagglutinin‐neuraminidase (sHN) attachment glycoprotein was constructed and prepared as previously devised for other henipavirus G glycoproteins (Cheliout Da Silva et al., 2021 ) (Supplementary Text S1 ); soluble, tetrameric, receptor‐binding protein (RBP) glycoproteins of HeV, NiV, and CedV (sG) (Laing et al., 2019 ; Schulz et al., 2020 ; Yan et al., 2021 ), nucleocapsid protein (N) of TioV (Petraityte et al., 2009 ) and lyssaviruses (Prada et al., 2019 ; Rahmadane et al., 2017 ), and SARS‐CoV‐1 N and MERS‐CoV N (Yu et al., 2008 ) were produced as previously described.…”

“…In the absence of sera from naïve captive‐bred or PCR‐confirmed CIFFs, Bayesian mixture models have been employed across multiple studies, providing a robust analytical method to determine threshold values for ‘natural’ groupings of seronegative and seropositive individuals (Peel et al., 2013 ). This method has been previously used for various bat species (Boardman et al., 2020a , 2020b ; Boyd et al., 2015 ; Burroughs et al., 2016 ; Edson et al., 2019 ; Laing et al., 2018 ; Peel et al., 2013 ) and domestic mammals (Chowdhury et al., 2014 ).…”

“…Therefore, a threshold roughly three times these values (1000 MFI) was established for both the MMIA and X‐TAG assays. This same threshold method has been used in previous studies where the same assays were conducted at the CSIRO, ACDP, with sera from other bat species, including multiple Australian insectivorous bat species (Prada et al., 2019a , 2019b ) and the grey‐headed flying‐fox ( P. poliocephalus ) (Boardman et al., 2020a , 2020b ; Burroughs et al., 2016 ). Samples were defined as positive or cross‐reactive if they exceeded both the MFI threshold of 1000 and the threshold estimated from the 95th percentile of the shifted‐Gompertz distribution.…”

Risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from humans to bats – An Australian assessment

“…While alpha- and betacoronaviruses have been found in Australian bats [ [7] , [8] , [9] ] there have been no detections to date of Sarbecoviruses or Merbecoviruses (SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses) in bats or other wildlife in Australia. However, serological evidence of exposure to a coronavirus antigenically related to SARS-CoV-1 has been found in multiple bat species [ [8] , [9] , [10] ].…”