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Published on: November 28, 2016
Detection of alphacoronaviruses in Rhinolophus ferrumequinum in Ehime, Japan
Hirohito Ogawa1, Ryusei Kuwata2, Shumpei Watanabe2
1Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Okayama University of Science, 1-3 Ikoinooka, Imabari, Ehime 794-8555, Japan; Department of Animal Resources, Advanced Science Research Center, Okayama University, 2-5-1 Shikata-cho, Kita-ku, Okayama 700-0914, Japan.
Abstract:
Bats are suspected reservoirs for several emerging viruses, including coronaviruses. Here, we report the detection of coronaviruses in the insectivorous bat, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, in Ehime Prefecture, located in Shikoku, the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. Phylogenetic analysis of the partial sequence of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene revealed that alphacoronaviruses have circulated throughout Ehime. Additionally, the near whole-genome sequence of the identified virus (EhRf2310-18) was closely related to that of BtRf-alphaCoV/HuB2013 identified in R. ferrumequinum in China (93.062 % overall nucleotide identity), indicating that bat coronaviruses circulating in Ehime belong to the Decacovirus subgenus of Alphacoronavirus. Alphacoronaviruses in R. ferrumequinum may be strongly adapted to this species, and are distributed across a wide area between Ehime and China.
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