Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus in bats, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The source of human infection with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus remains unknown. Molecular investigation indicated that bats in Saudi Arabia are infected with several alphacoronaviruses and betacoronaviruses. Virus from 1 bat showed 100% nucleotide identity to virus from the human index case-patient. Bats might play a role in human infection.

Keywords: MERS CoV; Middle East respiratory syndrome; Saudi Arabia; bats; coronavirus; viruses.

Figure 1

Bat sampling sites and locations of home and workplace of index case-patient with Middle East respiratory syndrome, Bisha, Saudi Arabia.

Figure 2

Phylogenetic tree showing genetic relatedness between coronaviruses identified in bat samples from Saudi Arabia (boldface), MERS coronaviruses, and other published coronavirus sequences available in GenBank. The maximum-likelihood tree of partial RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene (nt position 15068–15249 of GenBank accession no. JX869059) was constructed by using the Tamura-Nei model with discrete gamma rate differences among sites as implemented in MEGA 5.2 (www.megasoftware.net). Each branch shows the GenBank accession number followed by a brief description of the sequence used. Scale bar indicates nucleotide substitutions per site. MERS, Middle East respiratory syndrome; CoV, coronavirus; SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome; KSA, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.