Cameroonian fruit bats harbor divergent viruses, including rotavirus H, bastroviruses, and picobirnaviruses using an alternative genetic code

Yinda, Claude Kwe; Ghogomu, Stephen Mbigha; Conceição-Neto, Nádia; Beller, Leen; Deboutte, Ward; Vanhulle, Emiel; Maes, Piet; Van Ranst, Marc; Matthijnssens, Jelle

Additionally, we described for the first time in bat, picobirna-like sequences that use an alternative invertebrate mitochondrial genetic code. This observation together with our PCA analyses and the lack of an identifiable capsid sequence suggests that these PBV-like sequences might behave like mitoviruses, infecting mitochondria and not having an extracellular virion phase. Though experimental characterization of these viruses is needed to test this hypothesis, recent identification of bacterial ribosomal binding site in PBV genomes may suggest that prokaryotes are the potential hosts of PBVs (Krishnamurthy and Wang 2018) . Therefore, the question on what the true host of PBVs is still to be fully answered.