Centre for Biological Threats and Special Pathogens, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany.
Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory at the Peter Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
PLoS One. 2020 Mar 20;15(3):e0223629. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0223629. eCollection 2020.
Bats are well known reservoir hosts for RNA and DNA viruses. The use of captive bats in research has intensified over the past decade as researchers aim to examine the virus-reservoir host interface. In this study, we investigated the effects of captivity on the fecal bacterial microbiome of an insectivorous microbat, Mops condylurus, a species that roosts in close proximity to humans and has likely transmitted viral infections to humans. Using amplicon 16S rRNA gene sequencing, we characterized changes in fecal bacterial community composition for individual bats directly at the time of capture and again after six weeks in captivity. We found that microbial community richness by measure of the number of observed operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in bat feces increases in captivity. Importantly, we found the similarity of microbial community structures of fecal microbiomes between different bats to converge during captivity. We propose a six week-acclimatization period prior to carrying out infection studies or other research influenced by the microbiome composition, which may be advantageous to reduce variation in microbiome composition and minimize biological variation inherent to in vivo experimental studies.
蝙蝠是众所周知的 RNA 和 DNA 病毒的天然宿主。在过去十年中，随着研究人员旨在研究病毒-宿主界面，研究中使用圈养蝙蝠的情况有所增加。在这项研究中，我们调查了圈养对食虫蝙蝠，大足鼠耳蝠的粪便细菌微生物组的影响，这种蝙蝠栖息在人类附近，很可能已经将病毒感染传播给了人类。通过扩增子 16S rRNA 基因测序，我们在捕获时和圈养六周后直接对单个蝙蝠的粪便细菌群落组成进行了描述。我们发现，通过观察到的分类操作单元（OTUs）的数量来衡量，粪便中的微生物群落丰富度在圈养中增加。重要的是，我们发现粪便微生物组之间微生物群落结构的相似性在圈养过程中趋于收敛。我们建议在进行感染研究或其他受微生物组组成影响的研究之前，先进行六周的适应期，这可能有利于减少微生物组组成的变化，并最大限度地减少体内实验研究固有的生物学变异性。
