Virology Unit, Veterinary Faculty, Institute of Microbiology and Parasitology, University of Ljubljana, Gerbiceva 60, 1115 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Arch Virol. 2010 Apr;155(4):507-14. doi: 10.1007/s00705-010-0612-5. Epub 2010 Mar 10.
Bats have been identified as a natural reservoir for an increasing number of emerging zoonotic viruses, such as Hendra virus, Nipah virus, Ebola virus, Marburg virus, rabies and other lyssaviruses. Recently, a large number of viruses closely related to members of the genus Coronavirus have been associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and detected in bat species. In this study, samples were collected from 106 live bats of seven different bat species from 27 different locations in Slovenia. Coronaviruses were detected by RT-PCR in 14 out of 36 horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) fecal samples, with 38.8% virus prevalence. Sequence analysis of a 405-nucleotide region of the highly conserved RNA polymerase gene (pol) showed that all coronaviruses detected in this study are genetically closely related, with 99.5-100% nucleotide identity, and belong to group 2 of the coronaviruses. The most closely related virus sequence in GenBank was SARS bat isolate Rp3/2004 (DQ071615) within the SARS-like CoV cluster, sharing 85% nucleotide identity and 95.6% amino acid identity. The potential risk of a new group of bat coronaviruses as a reservoir for human infections is highly suspected, and further molecular epidemiologic studies of these bat coronaviruses are needed.
蝙蝠已被确定为越来越多新兴人畜共患病病毒的天然宿主，例如亨德拉病毒、尼帕病毒、埃博拉病毒、马尔堡病毒、狂犬病和其他狂犬病病毒。最近，大量与冠状病毒属成员密切相关的病毒与严重急性呼吸系统综合征（SARS）相关联，并在蝙蝠物种中检测到。在这项研究中，从斯洛文尼亚 27 个不同地点的 7 种不同蝙蝠物种中采集了 106 只活蝙蝠样本。通过 RT-PCR 在 36 份马蹄蝠（Rhinolophus hipposideros）粪便样本中的 14 份中检测到冠状病毒，病毒流行率为 38.8%。对高度保守的 RNA 聚合酶基因（pol）的 405 个核苷酸区域的序列分析表明，本研究中检测到的所有冠状病毒在遗传上密切相关，核苷酸同一性为 99.5-100%，属于冠状病毒的第 2 组。在 GenBank 中与 SARS 蝙蝠分离株 Rp3/2004（DQ071615）最接近的病毒序列属于 SARS 样 CoV 聚类中的冠状病毒，核苷酸同一性为 85%，氨基酸同一性为 95.6%。高度怀疑新的一组蝙蝠冠状病毒作为人类感染的潜在传染源，需要对这些蝙蝠冠状病毒进行进一步的分子流行病学研究。
