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

Among the most important molecular characteristics that are likely to contribute to the emergence of a virus in a novel host system is the 'evolutionary potential': a rapid mutation rate and the tendency to recombine make a virus more prone to spread in a new host species [40] [41] [42] . Among DNA viruses, parvoviruses exhibit the highest mutation rate, almost comparable to that possessed by RNA viruses, and they are extremely recombination prone [43] . Furthermore, host-switching has been reported [40] , although co-divergence (lead by co-evolution) of parvoviruses and their host is also noticed [44] . All these characteristics make parvoviruses one of the most likely candidates to be future emerging viruses. For these reasons it is of extreme importance to further pursue the search for novel parvoviruses and to clarify the real impact of the circulation of these viruses in bats and other mammals to identify and better characterize mechanisms linked to zoonotic transmission and host switching.