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

According to previous studies, phage comprise a large fraction of the viromes of human, equine and bat fecal samples [35, 37, 46, 47] . For example, the sequences of phage in bat guano from California and Texas respectively accounted for 4% and 0.1% of the total reads [37] , while phage sequences constituted .60% of the total in previously reported bat fecal samples in China [35] . In the present study, three phage families, Myoviridae, Podoviridae and Siphoviridae, were detected as being harbored by all four groups of bats, constituting 4% viral contigs in group XM, 2% in XO, 31% in WM and 1% in WO. In groups XM, XO and WO, the family Podoviridae was the most abundant, accounting for 48%, 93% and 87% of the total phage-like contigs respectively, while in WM the family Myoviridae was dominant, constituting 80% of phage-like contigs within the group. The wide prevalence of these three phage families in all 4 groups likely reflects the common infection status of phages in the gut bacterial microecosystems of bats in these areas.