Two Novel Parvoviruses in Frugivorous New and Old World Bats

Canuti, Marta; Eis-Huebinger, Anna Maria; Deijs, Martin; de Vries, Michel; Drexler, Jan Felix; Oppong, Samuel K.; Müller, Marcel A.; Klose, Stefan M.; Wellinghausen, Nele; Cottontail, Veronika M.; Kalko, Elisabeth K. V.; Drosten, Christian; van der Hoek, Lia

To evaluate whether bats carry viruses belonging to the Parvovirinae subfamily, we analyzed blood samples from two phylogenetically distant bat families [45] living in distant geographical areas. Both groups share similar ecological traits as they both feed on fruits as main diet. We used VIDISCA, a sequence independent virus discovery technique, combined with Roche-454 high throughput sequencing and discovered 2 novel members of the subfamily Parvovirinae: Eh-BtPV-1, a PARV4-like virus, identified in Ghanaian Eidelon helvum bats and Aj-BtPV-1, initially identified in Panamanian Artibeus jamaicensis bats and representing the first member of a putative new parvoviral genus. To our knowledge, Eh-BtPV-1 is the first potentially autonomously replicating member of the subfamily Parvovirinae identified in bat blood. Eh-BtPV-1 exhibits monophyletic origin with human PARV4 and the other primate, bovine and porcine viruses more recently identified [17] [18] [19] [20] . Unfortunately the baboon virus could not be included in the phylogenetic analysis due to the limited length of baboon viral sequence that is available (296 nts). Interestingly, based on computational prediction, beyond the putative major ORFs of Eh-BtPV-1 a small ORF termed MARF was additionally found in the unique part of VP1 overlapping the PLA 2 motif, but in a different reading frame. MARF was subsequently detected in all PARV4-like viruses so far known suggesting that the presence of this ORF characterizes this putative genus. Besides, Eh-BtPV-1 resembles a separate branch within the genus and, amongst the PARV4-like viruses identified until now it is the virus closest to the root of the genus. These data may suggest that a possible zoonotic transmission could have occurred in the past allowing the ancestor virus to be transmitted from bats to other mammals, as it has been already proposed for SARS-CoV [6] and other coronaviruses [10] . Since Eh-BtPV-1 is equally divergent from primates, bovine and porcine viruses, an independent introduction of an ancestral bat virus into different mammalian species can be hypothesized. It can also be assumed that either humans or other mammals could have played a role in transmitting the ancestral virus from bats to the other species. However, for exactly clarifying the role of bats in the evolution of this group a greater spectrum of PARV4-like viruses potentially present in bats has to be elucidated.