Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 9, 2026

Standard Operating Procedure for Lyssavirus Surveillance of the Bat Population in Taiwan
Published on: August 27, 2019
Detection and phylogenetic characterization of astroviruses in insectivorous bats from Central-Southern Italy
Maria Grazia Amoroso1, Danilo Russo2, Gianvito Lanave3
1Unit of Virology, Department of Animal Health, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Mezzogiorno, Portici, Naples, Italy.
Abstract:
In recent years, bats have been found to harbour many viruses, raising several questions about their role as reservoirs and potential disseminators of zoonotic viruses. We investigated the presence of six virus families in bats in three regions of Central-Southern Italy. Astroviruses were identified in seven of 13 bat species. Sequence analysis revealed marked genetic heterogeneity among the astroviruses identified, with nucleotide identity ranging between 60.26% and 87.62%. Astrovirus diversity was not associated with the bat species, the geographic areas or the bat colony, suggesting the circulation of several astrovirus strains in Italian ecosystems. Genetic diversification and interspecies transmission appear common in bat astroviruses and could provide, potentially, the bases for transmission to humans and other mammals. Yet overemphasizing this risk might have detrimental consequences for bat conservation and preservation of the important ecosystem services bats provide.
Related Concept Videos
Southern Blot
Denatured DNA fragments must be transferred onto a carrier membrane from the gel to make it accessible to a probe - a small ssDNA fragment complementary to the target DNA...
Phylogenetic Trees
The Central Dogma
The Central Dogma
RNA is the Missing Link Between DNA and Proteins
In the early 1900s, scientists discovered that DNA stores all the information needed for cellular functions and that proteins perform most of these functions. However, the mechanisms of converting genetic information into functional proteins remained unknown for many years. Initially, it was believed that a single gene is...
Measures of Central Tendency
What is Central Tendency?
The central tendency is the most conventionally used data characteristic. It is a...

