Detection of Bombali Virus in a Mops condylurus Bat in Kyela, Tanzania

Abstract

Bombali virus (BOMV) is a novel Orthoebolavirus that has been detected in free-tailed bats in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Kenya, and Mozambique. We screened our collection of 349 free-tailed bat lungs collected in Côte d'Ivoire and Tanzania for BOMV RNA and tested 228 bat blood samples for BOMV antibodies. We did not detect BOMV-specific antibodies but found BOMV RNA in a Mops condylurus bat from Tanzania, marking the first detection of an ebolavirus in this country. Our findings further expand the geographic range of BOMV and support M. condylurus' role as a natural BOMV host.

Keywords: Filoviridae; Orthoebolavirus bombaliense; ebolavirus; free-tailed bat; natural host.

Figure A1

ML tree of CytB sequences. Rooted based on the outgroup M. daubentoni. Branches with SH-aLRT branch support <90% are colored in gray. Putative species names and the number of individuals (i.e., all individuals in the cdhit clusters that were used for phylogenetic analysis) are indicated next to the black bars. Posterior probabilities are indicated over the branch leading to the species’ clades. Putative species with very low posterior probability values (<0.13) are not shown. Clades are collapsed and colored according to country.

Figure A2

Coverage plot of BOMV genome. The line plot shows coverage per genome position. The top part shows the structure of the BOMV genome. Genes are marked in green and labeled with the abbreviated gene name. Sequences used in phylogenetic analyses are marked in blue (Illumina sequences, minimum 3× coverage) and orange (Sanger sequences from PCR products).

Figure A3

Unrooted ML tree of BOMV sequences (ingroup analysis). The sequences are colored according to country and labeled with strain name or accession number. Branch support was assessed with Shimodaira–Hasegawa-like approximate likelihood ratio tests with 100,000 replicates and is given next to the branches. Scale bar indicates substitutions per site: (A) tree built from set1 alignment including Sanger and Illumina sequences of TZ154; (B) tree built from set2 alignment including only Sanger sequences of TZ154.

Figure A4

Rooted ML tree of BOMV sequences (outgroup analysis) based on outgroup EBOV. The sequences are colored according to country and labeled with strain name or accession number. Branch support was assessed with Shimodaira–Hasegawa-like approximate likelihood ratio test with 100,000 replicates and is given next to the branches. Branches with SH-aLRT branch support <90% are colored in gray. Branch lengths are shown as equal: (A) tree built from set1 alignment including Sanger and Illumina sequences of TZ154; (B) tree built from set2 alignment including only Sanger sequences of TZ154.

Figure A5

Bayesian phylogenetic tree of BOMV sequences (set2). Maximum clade credibility tree summarized from BEAST analysis using all published partial and complete BOMV sequences and only Sanger sequences generated from TZ154 (set2). Leaves are colored according to country and labeled with strain name or accession number. The posterior probability is given beside nodes (PP < 0.95 is marked in gray). Scale bar indicates substitutions per site.

Figure A6

Luminex titration curves for TZ154. Shown are median fluorescence intensities (MFI) per 100 beads measured for different dilutions (1:200, 1:400, 1:1000, and 1:2000) of the blood sample for different ebolavirus proteins. Different ebolavirus species are displayed in different colors, different proteins are indicated with different symbols. GP_EBOVk refers to the glycoprotein from the EBOV strain from Kissidougou/Makona (2014) in Guinea, and GP_EBOVm refers to the strain from Mayinga (1976) in DRC.

Figure 1

Map of bat sampling sites. The pie chart size corresponds to the number of individuals sampled at each site (log scale); M. condylurus in red and other free-tailed bats in blue. M. condylurus distribution is marked in dark gray.

Figure 2

Bayesian phylogenetic tree of BOMV sequences (set1). Maximum clade credibility tree summarized from BEAST analysis using all published partial and complete BOMV sequences and all sequences generated from TZ154. Leaves are colored according to country and labeled with strain name or accession number. Posterior probability (PP) is given beside nodes (PP < 0.95 is marked in gray). Scale bar indicates substitutions per site.