Viral metagenomics analysis of six New World bats species from Argentina

AGUSTINA CERRI; ELISA M. BOLATTI; GASTÓN VIARENGO; TOMAZ M. ZOREC; MARIA EUGENIA MONTANI; PABLO E. CASAL; LEA HONJAK; VIOLETA DI DOMENICA; DIEGO CHOUHY; RUBÉN BARQUEZ; MARIO POLJAK; ADRIANA A. GIRI

Congreso; XI Argentine Congress of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (XI CAB2C); 2021

Background:Bats are considered one of the most important natural reservoirs of a variety of zoonotic viruses, many of which (e.g. SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus) cause severe human diseases. Therefore, characterizing viruses of bats inhabiting different geographical regions is important not only for understanding their viral diversity but also for detecting viral spillovers between animal species. Herein, viral diversity of six bat species from Argentina was investigated using a metagenomic approach. Results:Specifically, selected fecal samples of 29 individuals from six different bat species, inhabiting two different geographical sites, were prepared and pooled by species, sex and collection site. Subsequently, enriched viral DNA was sequenced on the Illumina MiSeq platform and the obtained reads were trimmed, filtered and cleaned using several bioinformatics approaches. Finally, the target sequences were subjected to the viral taxonomic classification. A total of 4,520,370 read pairs were sequestered from the enriched pooled samples and, after quality filtering and trimming procedures, the taxonomic classification approach revealed that 20% of sequences mapped to viral taxa. Sequences from Parvoviridae, Circoviridae, Genomoviridae, Papillomaviridae, Herpesviridae, Poxviridae and Arteriviridae were the most prevalent among vertebrate viral families and identified in all bats species included in this study. In comparison to fecal pooled samples collected at T. brasiliensis colony in Rosario, higher diversity of vertebrate viral families was identified in fecal pooled samples from bats inhabiting Villarino Park (individual bats).Conclusions:Our findings provide new insights on viruses present in different bats species of our region, living in close contact with humans, and contribute to the understanding of their possible role of pathogen reservoirs.