Scientists from the American Society for Microbiology have identified a new herpes virus in bat cells, a finding that may help advance our understanding of the biology of herpes viruses and reveal why bats are the carrier of numerous viruses that have the potential to transfer to humans.
The study examined cells taken from the tumor of an adult female bat wing and was initially conducted in order to analyze bats' immune response to infection. Using a technique called next-generation sequencing, the team noticed that a large number of genes were not bat genes but genes related to the herpes virus.
Further experiments led to the isolation of a novel bat gammaherpesvirus, bat gammaherpesvirus 8 (BGHV8) and the genome assembly of almost 130,000 base pairs for the virus. Additionally, the team revealed that the virus was capable of multiplying in the lab and infecting human and animal cells.
"The cool thing about this study is that it was so surprising," Christopher Basler, senior author of the study, said in a press release. "We didn't go looking for a virus and really, by accident, we found this new virus, and it turned out to be the first replicating bat gammaherpesvirus. We think it's exciting for people interested in studying how bats interact with viruses."
The team used an electron microscope in order to see the viral particles in the bat cells and also used the virus' family tree to determine that BGHV8 shows both similarities and differences to other gammaherpesviruses.
"This is the first replicating bat gammaherpesvirus that's been isolated," said Reed Shabman, lead author of the study. "Most labs just have bits and pieces of a virus."
Further research will use the new findings to help answer the question of why bats are so commonly associated with infections that end up transferring to humans.
"A big question is why bats are repeatedly associated with infections that transfer to humans," Basler said. "We have very few tools to study bats' immune response to viruses. This natural bat virus is actually going to prove to be useful in understanding and probing."
The findings were published in the Feb. 17 issue of mSphere.
