Centre for Viral Zoonoses, Department of Medical Virology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0001, South Africa.
Centre for Emerging Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases, National Institute for Communicable Disease of the National Health Laboratory Service, Johannesburg 2131, South Africa.
Viruses. 2023 Oct 4;15(10):2047. doi: 10.3390/v15102047.
We report the genetic characterization of two potentially novel rabies-related lyssaviruses identified from bats in Limpopo province, South Africa. Matlo bat lyssavirus (MBLV) was identified in two (Natal long-fingered) bats in 2015 and 2016, and Phala bat lyssavirus (PBLV) was identified in a (Schlieffen's) bat in 2021. The distribution of both of these bat species is largely confined to parts of Africa, with limited reports from the Arabian Peninsula. MBLV and PBLV were demonstrated to group with the unassigned and phylogroup I lyssaviruses, respectively. MBLV was most closely related to (WCBV), whereas PBLV was most closely related to (TWBLV-1) and Taiwan bat lyssavirus 2 (TWBLV-2), based on analysis of the N and G genes, the concatenated N + P + M + G + L coding sequence, and the complete genome sequence. Based on our analysis, MBLV and WCBV appeared to constitute a phylogroup separate from (LLEBV) and (IKOV). Analysis of the antigenic sites suggests that PBLV will likely be serologically distinguishable from established lyssaviruses in virus-neutralization tests, whereas MBLV appeared to be antigenically highly similar to WCBV. Taken together, the findings suggested that, while PBLV is likely a new lyssavirus species, MBLV is likely related to WCBV.
我们报告了从南非林波波省的蝙蝠中鉴定出的两种可能的新型狂犬病相关的莱姆病病毒的遗传特征。在 2015 年和 2016 年，从两种（纳塔尔长指蝠）蝙蝠中鉴定出了 Matlo 蝙蝠莱姆病病毒（MBLV），而在 2021 年，从一种（Schlieffen 的蝙蝠）蝙蝠中鉴定出了 Phala 蝙蝠莱姆病病毒（PBLV）。这两种蝙蝠物种的分布主要局限于非洲部分地区，阿拉伯半岛的报道有限。MBLV 和 PBLV 分别被证明与未分配的和 I 组莱姆病病毒聚类。基于 N 和 G 基因、串联的 N + P + M + G + L 编码序列和完整基因组序列的分析，MBLV 与 WCBV 最为密切相关，而 PBLV 与 TWBLV-1 和台湾蝙蝠莱姆病病毒 2（TWBLV-2）最为密切相关。根据我们的分析，MBLV 和 WCBV 似乎构成了一个与 LLEBV 和 IKOV 不同的进化群。抗原位点分析表明，PBLV 在病毒中和试验中可能与已建立的莱姆病病毒在血清学上有区别，而 MBLV 似乎与 WCBV 在抗原上高度相似。总之，这些发现表明，虽然 PBLV 可能是一种新的莱姆病病毒，但 MBLV 可能与 WCBV 有关。
