FW: PRO/AH/EDR> SARS-like coronavirus - China: (YN) horseshoe bats

[Maffei, Joanne]

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Subject: PRO/AH/EDR> SARS-like coronavirus - China: (YN) horseshoe bats


SARS-LIKE CORONAVIRUS - CHINA: (YUNNAN) HORSESHOE BATS
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[1]
Date: Wed 30 Oct 2013
Source: The Canadian Press [edited]
<http://www.canada.com/health/SARSlike+viruses+found+Chinese+bats+closest+hits+2003+outbreak+virus/9102750/story.html>


A consortium of international scientists has discovered a SARS-like virus recovered from a Chinese horseshoe bat, further solidifying the theory that these bats are the ultimate source of the virus that killed more than 900 people around the globe in 2003. The new virus, which they called WIV1, is the closest match yet between SARS [virus] and coronaviruses from bats. In fact, the viruses are close enough genetically that antibodies in stored blood samples from SARS patients neutralized the virus in 7 of 9 samples tested. The scientists also reported that the virus uses the same receptor -- called ACE2 -- to latch onto and infect cells that SARS [virus] does. In laboratory work, WIV1 was able to directly infect human cells. That, they suggested, means that viruses like this may not need an animal go-between to cause human outbreaks -- they may be able to jump directly from bats to people. "Intermediate hosts many not be necessary for direct human infection by some bat SL-CoV [ SARS-like coronavirus]," they wrote in the paper, which is published in the journal Nature (see abstract reproduced in part [2] below).

Other scientists, though, cautioned that just because something occurs in the artificial confines of a laboratory doesn't mean it would also happen readily in nature. "We've known for a long time that bats carry all sorts of dangerous viruses. Yet we don't all die," said Marion Koopmans, chief of virology in the Dutch National Institute of Public Health's Center for Infectious Disease Control. "Cells in a test tube in the lab are very different from cells in a human host." Koopmans said even if it isn't essential to have another animal serve as a bridge -- the way infected civet cats did in Chinese animal markets during SARS -- it may remain more likely that bat viruses might take an indirect route into the human population. "It may not be essential to have an in-between host, but it may be that if bats carry viruses that easily infect intermediate hosts, that their ability to get to humans is much greater," she said.

Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said a factor that needs to be considered is how bat viruses could come in contact with human cells. In other words, what body fluid from the bat -- saliva, urine, feces, blood -- carries and therefore can transmit the virus?
"If the primary body fluid involved with transmitting (bat) coronaviruses to other animal species or humans in feces, the question
becomes: How often is that likely to occur?" Osterholm asked.

Peter Daszak, co-senior author of the paper, said it is true that this type of viral species jump is uncommon. But he said as humans encroach on the habitat of bats and other wild species, the risk rises. "There are many, many thousands of people -- millions -- in China who live close to bats. The problem is that we're doing things that put us at risk. We're increasingly catching bats, bringing them into the wildlife (meat) trade, and eating them globally,'' said Daszak, a disease ecologist who is president of the conservation group Ecohealth Alliance. "So yes, the risk is low. But actually, multiply that by billions of people and multiply it by an increasing annual encroachment into forest and an increasing connectivity with wildlife, and the risk grows."

The finding resulted from work done in China's Yunnan Province. The scientists gathered feces and collected fecal swabs from horseshoe bats over the course of 12 months from April 2011 and September 2012.
Of 117 samples, 23 per cent were positive for coronaviruses. Genetic sequencing of RNA from the samples showed evidence of 7 different strains of coronaviruses. The scientists were able to generate genetic sequences for 2, which were a 95 per cent match for a SARS virus known as Tor2. (Its name indicates it was isolated from a Toronto SARS
patient.) But WIV1 was the only live virus they were able to extract from the material. Daszak said this is the 1st time, to his knowledge, that has occurred. They tested the virus to see if it could grow in a wide variety of different types of cells from different species -- human respiratory tract and pig kidney cells among them. The virus grew in a surprising number, though not all.

German coronavirus expert Christian Drosten was involved in a study published last year [2013] that showed the MERS coronavirus -- a SARS cousin -- had a similar ability to infect cells from a diverse number of animal species. At the time, Drosten and his co-authors reported this was a rare feature of MERS, which is the virus behind the ongoing outbreak in the Middle East. Drosten said seeing similar behaviour in this new virus suggests some coronaviruses probably pose more of a risk to humans than others because they have more potential to jump species. "Here we have a big challenge for future research: to discriminate those potentially dangerous viruses from those that are ... most likely harmless because they are restricted to their hosts,"
Drosten said in an email.

The [research] was carried out by scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ecohealth Alliance, the University of California, Davis, the CSIRO [Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation] Australian Animal Health Laboratory at Geelong, East China Normal University at Shanghai, and Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore.]

[Byline: Helen Branswell]

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Communicated by:
ProMED-mail Rapporteur Mary Marshall

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[2]
Date: Wed 30 Oct 2013
Source: Nature journal [edited]
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12711.html>

[Ref: Ge XY, Li JL, Yang XL, et al: Isolation and characterization of a bat SARS-like coronavirus that uses the ACE2 receptor. Nature (2013) doi:10.1038/nature12711]
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Abstract
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The 2002-3 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) was one of the most significant public health events in recent history. An ongoing outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus suggests that this group of viruses remains a key threat and that their distribution is wider than previously recognized. Although bats have been suggested to be the natural reservoirs of both viruses, attempts to isolate the progenitor virus of SARS-CoV from bats have been unsuccessful. Diverse SARS-like coronaviruses (SL-CoVs) have now been reported from bats in China, Europe, and Africa, but none is considered a direct progenitor of SARS-CoV because of their phylogenetic disparity from this virus and the inability of their spike proteins to use the SARS-CoV cellular receptor molecule, the human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2).

Here we report whole-genome sequences of 2 novel bat coronaviruses from Chinese horseshoe bats (family: _Rhinolophidae_) in Yunnan,
China: RsSHC014 and Rs3367. These viruses are far more closely related to SARS-CoV than any previously identified bat coronaviruses, particularly in the receptor binding domain of the spike protein. Most importantly, we report the 1st recorded isolation of a live SL-CoV (bat SL-CoV-WIV1) from bat faecal samples in Vero E6 cells, which has typical coronavirus morphology, 99.9 per cent sequence identity to
Rs3367 and uses ACE2 from humans, civets, and Chinese horseshoe bats for cell entry. Preliminary in vitro testing indicates that WIV1 also has a broad species tropism.

Our results provide the strongest evidence to date that Chinese horseshoe bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-CoV, and that intermediate hosts may not be necessary for direct human infection by some bat SL-CoVs. They also highlight the importance of pathogen-discovery programs targeting high-risk wildlife groups in emerging disease hotspots as a strategy for pandemic preparedness.

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[A photograph of a Chinese horseshoe bat can be seen at <http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sites/default/files/public/styles/ss_media_popup/public/media/article/horseshoe_bat-flickr.jpg?itok=QVyS7C4_>.

Genome sequencing revealed that 2 of these novel viruses are more closely related to the SARS-CoV than any virus seen before. One infectious isolate was obtained which could be propagated in cell culture, and its receptor binding properties established and the receptor identified as the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, which is mainly found in pneumocytes, deep in human lungs.

The authors conclude that Chinese horseshoe bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-CoV and that intermediate hosts may not be necessary for direct human infection by some bat SARS-like coronaviruses. This virus, however, is not the SARS-CoV.

The ongoing outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus suggests that other bat-derived coronaviruses remain a threat and that their distribution may be wider than previously recognised.
Furthermore, that they may not require adaptation in an intermediate host prior to human infection. - Mod.CP

A HealthMap/ProMED-mail map can be accessed at:
<http://healthmap.org/r/7dum>.]

[see also:
2005
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SARS-like coronavirus, bats: RFI 20050930.2862
2004
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SARS - worldwide - China (32): civet cat ban 20041020.2842 SARS - worldwide (22): China (HK SAR), transmission 20040427.1164 SARS - worldwide (15): animal reservoirs 20040417.1059 SARS - worldwide (03): etiology 20040107.0073
2003
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SARS - worldwide (176): serosurvey China animal traders 20031016.2611 SARS worldwide (164): etiology 20030723.1800 International animal movement: veterinary control 20030611.1440 Severe acute respiratory syndrome - worldwide (06) 20030318.0677 SARS - worldwide (176): serosurvey China animal traders 20031016.2611 SARS - worldwide (168): etiology 20030906.2229 SARS worldwide (164): etiology 20030723.1800 SARS - worldwide (129): origin, speculation 20030602.1343 SARS - worldwide (120): origin, speculation 20030525.1290 SARS - worldwide (117): etiology 20030523.1267] .................................................cp/mj/dk
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