Viral Metagenomic Data Analyses of Five NewWorld Bat Species from Argentina: Identification of 35 Novel DNA Viruses

ELISA M. BOLATTI; GASTÓN VIARENGO; TOMAZ M. ZOREC; AGUSTINA CERRI; MONTANI, M EUGENIA; LEA HOSNJAK; PABLO E. CASAL; EUGENIA BORTOLOTTO; VIOLETA DI DOMENICA; DIEGO CHOUHY; MARÍA BELÉN ALLASIA; BARQUEZ RUBÉN M.; MARIO POLJAK; ADRIANA GIRI

Microorganisms

MDPI AG

Lugar: Basel; Año: 2022 vol. 10 p. 1 - 26

2076-2607

Bats are natural reservoirs of a variety of zoonotic viruses, many of which cause severehuman diseases. Characterizing viruses of bats inhabiting different geographical regions is importantfor understanding their viral diversity and for detecting viral spillovers between animal species.Herein, the diversity of DNA viruses of five arthropodophagous bat species from Argentina wasinvestigated using metagenomics. Fecal samples of 29 individuals from five species (Tadarida brasiliensis, Molossus molossus, Eumops bonariensis, Eumops patagonicus, and Eptesicus diminutus) living at two different geographical locations, were investigated. Enriched viral DNA was sequenced using Illumina MiSeq, and the reads were trimmed and filtered using several bioinformatic approaches.The resulting nucleotide sequences were subjected to viral taxonomic classification. In total, 4,520,370read pairs were sequestered by sequencing, and 21.1% of them mapped to viral taxa. Circoviridae andGenomoviridae were the most prevalent among vertebrate viral families in all bat species includedin this study. Samples from the T. brasiliensis colony exhibited lower viral diversity than samplesfrom other species of New World bats. We characterized 35 complete genome sequences of novelviruses. These findings provide new insights into the global diversity of bat viruses in poorly studiedspecies, contributing to