Update on Potentially Zoonotic Viruses of European Bats

Abstract

Bats have been increasingly gaining attention as potential reservoir hosts of some of the most virulent viruses known. Numerous review articles summarize bats as potential reservoir hosts of human-pathogenic zoonotic viruses. For European bats, just one review article is available that we published in 2014. The present review provides an update on the earlier article and summarizes the most important viruses found in European bats and their possible implications for Public Health. We identify the research gaps and recommend monitoring of these viruses.

Keywords: Issyk-Kul virus; Lloviu virus; Mammalian orthoreovirus; SARS-like CoV; Zwiesel bat banyangvirus; bats; metagenomics; virome; zoonoses.

Figure 1

Number of published virus sequences over time, related to the respective viral family and order (DBatVir [1]).

Figure 2

Number of published virus sequences by year of specimen collection (DBatVir [1]).

Figure 3

Published virus sequences by year of specimen collection, related to the respective viral family and order (DBatVir [1]).

Figure 4

Specimen type used for virus detection related to the respective viral family and order (DBatVir [1]).

Figure 5

Number of viruses by family recorded for European bats in log scale (DBatVir [1]).

Figure 6

Phylogenetic reconstruction of European SARS-like Betacoronaviruses with SARS-like viruses and SARS-CoV viruses from Asia. Phylogenetic reconstruction was calculated based on a 392 nt long fragment of CoV available under the accession numbers mentioned in the tree. Calculations were performed using Clustal, MrBayes (GTR, 10 Mio, 10 percent Burn-in), visualization Geneious prime.