Macrogenome analysis of rodents from Heilongjiang Province, China

Rodents are carriers and hosts of numerous zoonotic pathogens, analysing the diversity of viruses and bacteria carried by rodents is important for predicting and reducing the risk of future outbreaks of zoonotic diseases. Heilongjiang is a border province in China with rich ecological resources. In this study, we characterized the zoonotic microbiota (viruses and bacteria) in wild rodents. Sixty-seven rodents representing two species (20 Apodemus peninsulae; 47 Myodes rufocanus) were collected in Hengdaohezi Town, Heilongjiang Province, China. Metagenomic sequencing was employed to characterize pathogen carriage in these reservoirs. The sequencing results showed that the annotated viruses covered 21 viral families, including family Arenaviridae and family Hantaviridae. The annotated bacteria cover 1051 bacterial genera, including genus Salmonella and genus Yersinia. Results of de novo assembly of extracted viral sequences using Megahit showed that 154 contigs were assembled from these two hosts, and 110 of these contigs were mapped to 19 viruses from eight families, including Rat arterivirus1, Amur virus and Lassa mammarenavirus, these results can provide a certain reference for the monitoring and control of rodents in Heilongjiang Province.