Increased Susceptibility of <i>Rousettus aegyptiacus</i> Bats to Respiratory SARS-CoV-2 Challenge Despite Its Distinct Tropism for Gut Epithelia in Bats

Increased Susceptibility of <i>Rousettus aegyptiacus</i> Bats to Respiratory SARS-CoV-2 Challenge Despite Its Distinct Tropism for Gut Epithelia in Bats

Increasing evidence suggests bats are the ancestral hosts of the majority of coronaviruses. In general, coronaviruses primarily target the gastrointestinal system, while some strains, especially Betacoronaviruses with the most relevant representatives SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2, also cause s...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Björn-Patrick Mohl, Claudia Blaurock, Angele Breithaupt, Alexander Riek, John R. Speakman, Catherine Hambly, Marcel Bokelmann, Gang Pei, Balal Sadeghi, Anca Dorhoi, Anne Balkema-Buschmann
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024-10-01
Series:Viruses
Subjects:
SARS-CoV-2
<i>Rousettus aegyptiacus</i>
tissue tropism
respiratory tract
digestive tract
viral infection
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/16/11/1717
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Increasing evidence suggests bats are the ancestral hosts of the majority of coronaviruses. In general, coronaviruses primarily target the gastrointestinal system, while some strains, especially Betacoronaviruses with the most relevant representatives SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2, also cause severe respiratory disease in humans and other mammals. We previously reported the susceptibility of <i>Rousettus aegyptiacus</i> (Egyptian fruit bats) to intranasal SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here, we compared their permissiveness to an oral infection versus respiratory challenge (intranasal or orotracheal) by assessing virus shedding, host immune responses, tissue-specific pathology, and physiological parameters. While respiratory challenge with a moderate infection dose of 1 × 10<sup>4</sup> TCID<sub>50</sub> caused a systemic infection with oral and nasal shedding of replication-competent virus, the oral challenge only induced nasal shedding of low levels of viral RNA. Even after a challenge with a higher infection dose of 1 × 10<sup>6</sup> TCID<sub>50</sub>, no replication-competent virus was detectable in any of the samples of the orally challenged bats. We postulate that SARS-CoV-2 is inactivated by HCl and digested by pepsin in the stomach of <i>R. aegyptiacus</i>, thereby decreasing the efficiency of an oral infection. Therefore, fecal shedding of RNA seems to depend on systemic dissemination upon respiratory infection. These findings may influence our general understanding of the pathophysiology of coronavirus infections in bats.
ISSN:1999-4915

Similar Items