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Project

Viral gastroenteritis and the potential threat of bat viruses to human health in Cameroon

Over the last years, several viruses pathogenic to human viruses are believed to have originated in bats, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)-related coronaviruses, as well as filoviruses, such as Ebola- and Marburgvirus, or Henipaviruses, such as Nipah and Hendra virus. In Cameroon, bats are hunted and eaten in some parts of the country, particularly the Southwest Region and these close interactions between humans and bats provide ample opportunity for the infection of humans with enteric viruses from bats. However, nothing is known about the gut virome in bats from Cameroon, and their potential threats to human health.

In order to establish the potential of bat viruses to undergo zoonotic transmission to humans, the fecal viromes of bats and humans from Cameroon were investigated using next generation sequencing techniques (Illumina). State of the art bioinformatic tools were used to study which bat and human viruses were present. 

About 11% of the total curated bat virome reads were shown to belong to eukaryotic viruses belonging to the order Picornavirales and the families AstroviridaeCaliciviridae, Circorviridae, Coronaviridae, Herpesviridae, Papillomaviridae, Paramyxoviridae, Parvoviridae Picobirnaviridae and Reoviridae. Most of these viruses were divergent from known viruses and constitute novel genera and/or species in their respective families. In human samples, viruses belonging to some of these families (Adenoviridae, AstroviridaeCaliciviridae, Picornaviridae and Reoviridae) were identified. In particular, potentially zoonotic viruses were identified in human samples for the first time in Cameroon include mammalian orthoreovirus strain (an uncommon cause of gastroenteritis) with divergent phylogenetic relatedness to strains from rodents and bats; smacovirus with genetic relatedness to a chimpanzee strain; and finally picobirna-like RdRP sequences that use an alternative mitochondrial genetic code for translation with genetic relatedness to a picobirna-like virus found in a bat pool from the same region. These instances indicate possible interspecies transmission events between human and not only bats but other wildlife in this area.

Therefore, the data can serve as a baseline for future studies on viruses from bats and humans in this area and contributes to our knowledge of the world’s virome. It provides meaningful ecological information for predicting and tracing bat borne viral infection in this area. Additionally, this information might be very valuable for future zoonotic outbreak investigations, allowing a fast host identification of novel zoonotic viruses, thereby permitting rapid implementation of measures for prevention and possible treatment. 

Date:1 Oct 2014 →  7 Sep 2018
Keywords:Human gut virome, Bats, Zoonosis
Disciplines:Microbiology, Systems biology, Laboratory medicine
Project type:PhD project