Bats host major mammalian paramyxoviruses

Drexler, Jan Felix; Corman, Victor Max; Müller, Marcel Alexander; Maganga, Gael Darren; Vallo, Peter; Binger, Tabea; Gloza-Rausch, Florian; Rasche, Andrea; Yordanov, Stoian; Seebens, Antje; Oppong, Samuel; Sarkodie, Yaw Adu; Pongombo, Célestin; Lukashev, Alexander N.; Schmidt-Chanasit, Jonas; Stöcker, Andreas; Carneiro, Aroldo José Borges; Erbar, Stephanie; Maisner, Andrea; Fronhoffs, Florian; Buettner, Reinhard; Kalko, Elisabeth K.V.; Kruppa, Thomas; Franke, Carlos Roberto; Kallies, René; Yandoko, Emmanuel R.N.; Herrler, Georg; Reusken, Chantal; Hassanin, Alexandre; Krüger, Detlev H.; Matthee, Sonja; Ulrich, Rainer G.; Leroy, Eric M.; Drosten, Christian

Like almost all PVs currently contained in GenBank, our novel viruses were identified by RT-PCR and sequencing. PCR primers have an inherent bias due to their sequence specificity. We have applied a large range of published and own primer sets to compensate for this bias. Some of these have been thoroughly validated on clinical panels from a large range of hosts, confirming high sensitivity over a large genetic range of viruses 31 . More recent studies have suggested to improve the detection of novel viruses by hypothesisfree approaches such as random cDNA amplification from serum followed by deep sequencing 32 . Inclusion of such an approach in our study indeed revealed novel viral sequences that should be investigated further, but did not yield any PV. Low serum concentrations of PV RNA may have prevented detection, reminding us that hypothesis-free virus testing may not be sufficiently sensitive to enable comprehensive detection of viral flora 32, 33 .