Distinct lineage of vesiculovirus from big brown bats, United States

Abstract

We identified a novel rhabdovirus, American bat vesiculovirus, from postmortem tissue samples from 120 rabies-negative big brown bats with a history of human contact. Five percent of the tested bats were infected with this virus. The extent of zoonotic exposure and possible health effects in humans from this virus are unknown.

Keywords: Eptesicus fuscus; Maryland; North America; Rhabdoviridae; United States; bats; big brown bats; rabies; vesiculovirus; viral metagenomic; virus discovery; viruses.

Figure

Analyses of American bat vesiculovirus (ABVV) compared with other members of the family Rhabdoviridae. A) Genome organization of ABVV; B) Bayesian inference tree of the ABVV N gene; C) Bayesian inference tree of the 5 concatenated ABVV genes (N, P, M, G, L). For the Bayesian analyses, sequences from the entire gene were used, except for a few partially sequenced genomes for which only ≈100 aa were publicly available. Posterior probabilities (>75%) of the Bayesian analysis are shown next to each node. Formally classified vesiculoviruses are labeled with “V,” whereas potential vesiculoviruses not formally recognized by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses are labeled with “V?.” Distinct clades of bat rhabdoviruses are labeled with triangles of different colors: black, vesiculovirus; gray, lyssavirus; white, unclassified. N, nucleoprotein; P, phosphoprotein; M, matrix protein; G, glycoprotein; L, polymerase protein. Scale bar indicates amino acid substitutions per site.