A novel poxvirus isolated from an Egyptian fruit bat in Israel

Abstract

An Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) from the Zoological Gardens, at Tel Aviv, Israel, showed pox-like clinical signs including vesicular and nodular skin lesions on the wings. Cell culture isolation, histopathology, electron microscopy and molecular analysis, revealed the presence of a novel bat poxvirus. Future research is needed to determine whether this virus can affect human health.

Keywords: Rousettus aegyptiacus; Egyptian fruit bat; IsrRAPXV; Israel; Novel pox virus; Skin lesions.

Figure 1

(a) Photograph of the Egyptian fruit bat wing showing multiple poxes‐like lesions (Arrows). (b) Cytopathic effect (Arrows) of IsrRAPXV in Vero cells 6 days post infection (magnification x100). (c) Histologic analysis of lesions from a Egyptian fruit bat Rosettus Aegiptiacus infected with novel poxvirus revealing epidermal hyperplasia with ballooning of keratinocytes and the presence of intra‐cytoplasmic inclusion bodies (magnification X 200); (d) Transmission electron micrograph of poxvirus particles with negative staining of cell culture supernatant

Figure 2

Phylogenetic tree of the poxviridae family. A neighbour‐joining phylogram shows the relationship of the IsrRAPXV (red) to 41 poxviruses based on the concatenated amino acid sequences of seven conserved genes. DNA polymerase, RNA polymerase subunit RPO147, RNA polymerase subunit RPO132, RNA polymerase‐associated RAP94, virion major core protein P4a, early transcription factor VETFL and NTPase (6,659 amino acids characters). Amsacta moorei (red hairy caterpillar) (Moyer), Amsacta cuprea (CV6M) and Melanoplus sanguinipes (entomopoxviruses) were used as the outgroup sequences. The scale bar indicates amino acid substitutions per site. The strain names are in parentheses