Bacterial Composition Across Bat Species: A Human Health Perspective

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Zoonotic Diseases
• Environmental Health

Background:

• Bats are recognized reservoirs for diverse bacterial pathogens with public health implications.
• Recent zoonotic disease outbreaks have increased focus on bat microbiomes and high-throughput sequencing for microbial diversity assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review literature from the past five years on bacterial species associated with bats.
• To assess the potential clinical relevance of these bacteria and identify research trends.

Main Methods:

• Conducted automated searches and manual filtering of 47 peer-reviewed studies published within the last five years.
• Focused on data extraction regarding bacterial species, sample types (guano, skin), and sequencing methodologies.

Main Results:

• Identified 4700 bacterial species associated with bats, including known human pathogens with aerosol transmission or opportunistic infection potential.
• Noted a predominance of research on guano samples, with rising interest in skin microbiomes, particularly concerning white-nose syndrome.
• China and the United States lead publications, with amplicon sequencing as the primary metagenomic method.

Conclusions:

• Bat-associated bacteria include numerous species of clinical concern, some prioritized for antimicrobial drug development.
• Integrating bats into epidemiological surveillance is crucial due to the clinical severity of associated diseases.
• Lack of standardized reporting practices hinders robust ecological and epidemiological analyses of bat microbiome data.