Extensive genetic diversity of bat-borne polyomaviruses reveals inter-family host-switching events

Zhizhou Tan; Gabriel Gonzalez; Jinliang Sheng; Jianmin Wu; Fuqiang Zhang; Lin Xu; Peisheng Zhang; Aiwei Zhu; Yonggang Qu; Changchun Tu; Michael J. Carr; Biao He

Introduction 112 southwest (Yunnan and Guangxi), southeast (Fujian and Zhejiang) and northwest (Xinjiang) 113 provinces in China. The bats were identified morphologically by field-trained experts during 114 sampling and confirmed by partial mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) gene sequencing [31] of 115 representative individuals in every colony (S1 Table) . The bats were insectivorous except for one 116 fruit bat species Rousettus leschenaultii in the family Pteropodidae, and were captured in diverse 117 habitats, including natural and artificial caves, orchards and human-made structures (S1 Table) . 118 Archived tissues from individual bats had previously been sampled for zoonotic virus 119 surveillance, including for group A rotaviruses (RVA) [32] and hantaviruses [33] . 120 As part of the regional viral surveillance of a bat-borne zoonosis program, the lungs and rectal 121 tissue of 208 bats of 9 bat species from colonies 1-4 (S1 Table) collected in Yunnan province 122 were pooled and subjected to viral metagenomic analysis, as previously described [34] . Nucleic The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. It . https://doi.org/10.1101/627158 doi: bioRxiv preprint provided in S1 Table. 147 b Number of PyVs identified based on the partial VP1 sequences as shown in Fig 2 and S2 Table. . CC-BY 4.0 International license is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. It . https://doi.org/10.1101/627158 doi: bioRxiv preprint 149 Extensive genetic diversity of polyomaviruses among bats.