- 302 samples of faeces and urine and 109 mouth swabs taken from 342 live bats studied.
- Team sequenced 24 coronavirus genomes, of which 4 were new viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2.
- One of the viruses isolated from a Rhinolophus pusillus bat shared 94.5% of its genome with the pandemic virus.
- The results suggest that viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 continue to circulate in bats.
According to an article published in the Nature, bats in the province of Yunnan in southern China have yielded yet more coronaviruses closely related to the pandemic virus.
The Research Team
Weifeng Shi at the Shandong First Medical University & Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences in Taian, China, and his colleagues studied 302 samples of faeces and urine and 109 mouth swabs taken from 342 live bats between May 2019 and November 2020 (H. Zhou et al. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/gh73mk; 2021).The researchers trapped and released all the bats, which represented nearly two dozen species, in an area covering roughly 1,100 hectares — less than one-tenth the size of San Francisco, California.
Findings
From the samples, the team sequenced 24 coronavirus genomes, of which 4 were new viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2. One of the viruses isolated from a Rhinolophus pusillus bat shared 94.5% of its genome with the pandemic virus, making it the second-closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2. The closest known relative is a coronavirus called RATG13, which shares 96% of its genome with SARS-CoV-2 and was isolated from a Rhinolophus affinis bat in Yunnan in 2013.
The results suggest that viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 continue to circulate in bats and are highly prevalent in some regions, the researchers say. The findings have not yet been peer reviewed.
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Source: Nature
