Isolation and Characterization of Rotavirus from Bat

Bats are considered as important animal reservoirs for many pathogenic viruses to humans.The viral metagenomic analysis was performed to study gut and lung tissues of 30insectivorous bats collected in Yunnan Province and 26reads were noted to group A rotavirus(RVA).Further RT-PCR screening on bat samples and in vitro viral isolation on cell cultures confirmed the presence of a novel RVA,named as RVA/Bat-tc/MYAS33/2013/G3P[10],in one of 30Stoliczka′s trident bats.The VP7gene of this strain MYAS33was closely related to that of an equine RVA strain from Argentina and the nucleotide sequence similarity was 93%,while its VP4gene was a rare P[10]type and obtained the maximum sequence identity(94.8%)with that of a human strain from Thailand.The present study highlights the potential role of bats as reservoirs for RVAs.