Bat research critical to preventing next pandemic

Date:
July 13, 2020
Source:
Washington State University
Summary:
The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has a likely connection to bats,
and the next viral outbreak probably will too. A recent review calls
for more research into bats' molecular biology and their ecology,
to help predict, and hopefully prevent, the next pandemic.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has a likely connection to bats, and the
next viral outbreak probably will too, unless scientists can quickly
learn more about the thousands of viruses carried by one of the most
diverse mammals on the planet.


========================================================================== Evidence already links different bat species to human outbreaks of
SARS, MERS, some Ebola viruses as well as the Marbug, Hendra, Sosuga
and Nipah viruses.

Beyond these connections, there is very little known, and a recent
article in Nature Reviews Microbiology calls for more research into bats' molecular biology and their ecology, to help predict, and hopefully
prevent, the next pandemic.

"The more researchers have looked, the more we've found that a lot
of these emerging pathogens, at one point or another, originated in
bats," said Michael Letko, the lead author and an assistant professor of molecular virology at Washing State University's Paul G. Allen School of
Global Animal Health. "Over time, we have accumulated a lot of information about some of the species of bats and some of the viruses they carry,
but there are still these huge glaring holes in our knowledge." With more
than 1,400 species, bats represent an extremely diverse mammalian order,
second only to rodents, which are also known viral hosts. However,
unlike rats and mice, bats are not great lab animals. Simply keeping
flying animals in labs is difficult. Also, most of the mammalian cell
lines developed for research came from other animals and cannot be used
to study viruses found in bats.

This knowledge gap is dangerous as the current pandemic shows. Bats are
found almost everywhere scientists have looked, and with expanding human encroachment on their habitat, viral infection is almost inevitable,
Letko said.

"We are coming into more contact with animal species around us in
general, and then we find out these species are loaded with viruses," he
said. "The COVID-19 pandemic is unfortunate, but it's not surprising. We
roll the dice for 20 years not doing anything to reduce contact with
these animals. It was more or less a matter of time before something
like this was going to happen." In the paper, Letko, and his co-authors including WSU assistant professor Stephanie Seifert and Vincent Munster
from Rocky Mountain Laboratories, outline ways to decrease the odds
of the next pandemic by increasing research into bats on the smallest, molecular level and on the broader macro-level of the environment.

While many pathogens have been identified, the authors point out the
need to move beyond discovery and use the latest genetic technologies
to better understand how viruses can be transmitted. This knowledge can increase the ability to develop medicines quickly after a pathogen has
been found -- or even better, create vaccines to protect against whole
virus groups before they emerge.

Letko has already taken a step in this direction. Before the current
crisis, he built a platform using synthetic coronavirus particles to
test which were most likely to infect human cells. When the current
pandemic began, Letko tested the SARS-Cov-2 genome as soon as the
sequence was available and quickly identified the likely receptor on
human cells. That study, published in Nature Microbiology on Feb. 24,
was one of the first to provide functional laboratory data on the new
virus, providing researchers with necessary information and tools to help determine which existing drugs might work against SARS-Cov-2 and start development on new ones as well as test various aspects of SARS-CoV-
2 vaccine efficacy.

Letko is setting up his lab at WSU to continue this work, providing
initial screening of bat-borne viruses to help identify those that are
most likely to be transmitted to humans.

Beyond the lab, Letko and his colleagues point to the need for better understanding of bat ecology which can lead to solutions that are
relatively simple to implement. The researchers cite examples such as
the effort to vaccinate horses in Australia to stop the Hendra virus
which was spreading from fruit bats to horses and then potentially on to humans. Another intervention in Bangladesh involved simply putting lids
on palm sap containers to keep bats out and prevent human outbreaks of
Nipah virus.

"Sometimes, you don't need vaccines or drugs. It's just a behavioral
change that helps mitigate and reduce the contact between people and the animals," Letko said. "These are some of the kinds of interventions that
we can take once we begin to understand what these viruses actually do."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Washington_State_University. Original written by Sara Zaske. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Michael Letko, Stephanie N. Seifert, Kevin J. Olival, Raina
K. Plowright,
Vincent J. Munster. Bat-borne virus diversity, spillover and
emergence.

Nature Reviews Microbiology, 2020; 18 (8): 461 DOI:
10.1038/s41579-020- 0394-z ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200713104354.htm

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