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

Members of family Astroviridae, comprising genera Avastrovirus and Mamastrovirus, are important pathogens and usually cause acute gastroenteritis of human and a broad spectrum of animals, including livestock, poultry, companion animals, fur animals and marine mammals [48, [70] [71] [72] . The genetically diverse mamastroviruses consisted of 6 species in 2009 [73] , but since the first bat Astv report in 2008 [12] identification of numerous new Astvs had expanded the list to 19 species by 2011, with 7 relating to bats [48] . They have been identified in several bat species including Miniopterus schreibersii, Scotophilus kuhlii, and Rousettus leschenaultia in Hainan, Hunan, Anhui, Guangxi and Fujian provinces, China [12] [13] [14] , and from M. myotis in Germany [59] . In the present study, more novel bat Astvs were detected that diverged from the current 19 Astv species, as shown in figure 1 , indicating that these form new species within the genus Mamastrovirus. The continuing emergence of new mamastrovirus species and their wide genetic divergence in bats indicates that there could still be more unknown bat astroviruses.