Genomic Characterization of a Relative of Mumps Virus in Lesser Dawn Bats of Southeast Asia

Adrian C Paskey; Xiao Fang Lim; Justin H J Ng; Gregory K Rice; Wan Ni Chia; Casandra W Philipson; Randy Foo; Regina Z Cer; Kyle A Long; Matthew R Lueder; Lindsay Glang; Kenneth G Frey; Theron Hamilton; Ian H Mendenhall; Gavin J Smith; Danielle E Anderson; Lin-Fa Wang; Kimberly A Bishop-Lilly

doi:10.3390/v15030659

Genomic Characterization of a Relative of Mumps Virus in Lesser Dawn Bats of Southeast Asia

Viruses. 2023 Feb 28;15(3):659. doi: 10.3390/v15030659.

Authors

Adrian C Paskey^{1

2}, Xiao Fang Lim³, Justin H J Ng³, Gregory K Rice^{1

2}, Wan Ni Chia³, Casandra W Philipson^{1

4}, Randy Foo³, Regina Z Cer¹, Kyle A Long^{1

2}, Matthew R Lueder^{1

2}, Lindsay Glang^{1

2}, Kenneth G Frey¹, Theron Hamilton¹, Ian H Mendenhall³, Gavin J Smith³, Danielle E Anderson^{3

5}, Lin-Fa Wang³, Kimberly A Bishop-Lilly¹

Affiliations

¹ Genomics and Bioinformatics Department, Biological Defense Research Directorate, Naval Medical Research Center-Frederick, Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD 21702, USA.
² Leidos, Reston, VA 20190, USA.
³ Programme in Emerging Infectious Diseases, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore 169857, Singapore.
⁴ Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Fort Belvoir, VA 22060, USA.
⁵ Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia.

Abstract

The importance of genomic surveillance on emerging diseases continues to be highlighted with the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Here, we present an analysis of a new bat-borne mumps virus (MuV) in a captive colony of lesser dawn bats (Eonycteris spelaea). This report describes an investigation of MuV-specific data originally collected as part of a longitudinal virome study of apparently healthy, captive lesser dawn bats in Southeast Asia (BioProject ID PRJNA561193) which was the first report of a MuV-like virus, named dawn bat paramyxovirus (DbPV), in bats outside of Africa. More in-depth analysis of these original RNA sequences in the current report reveals that the new DbPV genome shares only 86% amino acid identity with the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of its closest relative, the African bat-borne mumps virus (AbMuV). While there is no obvious immediate cause for concern, it is important to continue investigating and monitoring bat-borne MuVs to determine the risk of human infection.

Keywords: Eonycteris spelaea; genomics; next-generation sequencing; paramyxoviruses; virus discovery.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Animals
Asia, Southeastern / epidemiology
COVID-19*
Chiroptera*
Genomics
Humans
Mumps virus / genetics
Paramyxoviridae / genetics
Phylogeny
SARS-CoV-2

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the U.S. Navy, Office of Naval Research, In-House Laboratory Independent Research (ILIR) Program and Navy WUN A1417. Work completed at Duke-NUS was supported by grants from the National Research Foundation (NRF2012NRFCRP001-056 and NRF2016NRF-NSFC002-013) and the National Medical Research Council (OFLCG19May-0034), Singapore.