Virome Profiling of Bats from Myanmar by Metagenomic Analysis of Tissue Samples Reveals More Novel Mammalian Viruses

He, Biao; Li, Zuosheng; Yang, Fanli; Zheng, Junfeng; Feng, Ye; Guo, Huancheng; Li, Yingying; Wang, Yiyin; Su, Nan; Zhang, Fuqiang; Fan, Quanshui; Tu, Changchun

The region covering Southeast Asia and Southern China is a main epicenter of emerging or re-emerging viral diseases due to its high human population, inadequately developed public health systems, and abundant and diverse wild animal resources with their illegal trading. Yunnan province in China is a main and busy trading route between Southeast Asia and China and shares a long border with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. Studies have shown that many viruses, including Nipah virus, JEV, Chikungunya virus, and circovirus, are present in bats in Cambodia, Thailand and Yunnan [9, 17, 18, 35, [38] [39] [40] . To expand these studies to Myanmar, we applied viral metagenomics to determine the virome of bats collected from areas of Myanmar adjoining Yunnan. Results revealed 24 virus families in these bats, including phages and viruses of plants and insects as well as vertebrates. Several viruses of the genera Orthohepadnavirus, Mastadenovirus, Mamastrovirus, and Bocavirus, have been characterized as new viruses. This work has expanded our knowledge of bat viruses and their geodistribution in Southeast Asia and could be helpful in establishing effective surveillance of wildlife-associate zoonoses.