CSRIO Livestock Industries, Australian Animal Health Laboratory, Geelong, Victoria 3216, Australia.
Curr Opin Virol. 2011 Dec;1(6):649-57. doi: 10.1016/j.coviro.2011.10.013. Epub 2011 Nov 9.
For the past 10-15 years, bats have attracted growing attention as reservoirs of emerging zoonotic viruses. This has been due to a combination of factors including the emergence of highly virulent zoonotic pathogens, such as Hendra, Nipah, SARS and Ebola viruses, and the high rate of detection of a large number of previously unknown viral sequences in bat specimens. As bats have ancient evolutionary origins and are the only flying mammals, it has been hypothesized that some of their unique biological features may have made them especially suitable hosts for different viruses. So the question 'Are bats different, special or exceptional?' has become a focal point in the field of virology, bat biology and virus-host co-evolution. In this brief review, we examine the topic in a relatively unconventional way, that is, our discussion will be based on both scientific discoveries and theoretical predictions. This approach was chosen partially because the data in this field are so limited that it is impossible to conduct a useful review based on published results only and also because we believe it is important to provoke original, speculative or even controversial ideas or theories in this important field of research.
在过去的 10-15 年中，蝙蝠作为新兴人畜共患病病毒的宿主，引起了越来越多的关注。这是由于多种因素的综合作用，包括高致病性人畜共患病病原体的出现，如亨德拉、尼帕、非典和埃博拉病毒，以及在蝙蝠样本中检测到大量以前未知的病毒序列的高比率。由于蝙蝠具有古老的进化起源，是唯一的飞行哺乳动物，因此有人假设，它们一些独特的生物学特征可能使它们特别适合不同的病毒。因此，“蝙蝠是否与众不同、特殊或例外？”这个问题已成为病毒学、蝙蝠生物学和病毒-宿主共同进化领域的一个焦点。在这篇简短的综述中，我们以一种相对非常规的方式探讨了这个话题，也就是说，我们的讨论将基于科学发现和理论预测。之所以选择这种方法，部分是因为该领域的数据非常有限，仅基于已发表的结果进行有用的综述是不可能的，还因为我们认为在这个重要的研究领域中，提出原创的、推测性的甚至有争议的想法或理论是很重要的。
