Surveillance of Coronaviruses in fruit bats (Pteropus lylei) of Thailand

Abstract

Coronavirus (CoV) is an enveloped single positive-stranded RNA virus CoV can cause enteric and respiratory diseases in mammals, avian and human. Bats are the natural reservoir of CoVs and distribute all over Thailand. Sample collection was performed in two bat colonies in Ayutthaya and Saraburi provinces during March 2018 – February 2019. Total 1,487 samples were collected from 730 bats. The bat species identification via morphological measurement and cytochrome B detection showed that bats in both colonies are Lyle’s flying fox (Pteropus lylei). The results of CoV detection showed that 4.30% of samples were positive to CoV. Phylogenetic analysis showed the bat CoV in this thesis were clustered with Thai bat CoV of BetaCoV lineage D from Pteropus lylei in Chonburi province but were in the different groups of MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). For genetic analysis, bat CoV in this thesis had 98-100% nucleotide identities to Thai Bat-CoV but had <70% identity to others reference sequences. Our results confirmed that CoVs are circulating in two bat colonies in Ayutthaya and Saraburi and the viruses are closely genetic related to bat CoV in bat in the same species from Eastern part of Thailand. Although the bat CoVs in this thesis were far related with pandemic CoVs, but routinely surveillance of CoVs in bats should be performed since bat CoV could be a potential zoonotic virus.