Effects of Corona and Astrovirus infections on the gut microbiomes of bats: the Hipposideros species complex as a model for virus-induced increase of pathogenic bacteria in highly gregarious mammals

冠状病毒和星状病毒感染对蝙蝠肠道微生物群的影响：Hipposideros物种复合体作为病毒诱导高度群居哺乳动物致病菌增加的模型

• 批准号: 433021364
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Christian Drosten
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Evolutionsökologie und Naturschutzgenomik
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/433021364?language=en
• 关键词: Effects; Corona; Astrovirus; infections; gut

The gut microbiome of a vertebrate has not only metabolic functions, it is also an important driver of immune defence mechanisms. To fulfil these roles, some stability and consistency within the gut microbial community is required. Enteric viruses can disturb the balance of the microbial communities, which can lead to secondary infections and to shifts towards higher number of pathogenic microbe species. If this happens in known pathogen reservoir species, a higher zoonotic risk may arise. Bats constitute the evolutionary origin and reservoirs of a high number of zoonotic pathogens. Among them are astroviruses (AstV), the worldwide leading cause of infectious diarrhoea in children, and different gastrointestinal coronavirus (CoV) species that constitute the ancestors of the viruses that recently caused highly pathogenic SARS and MERS epidemics in humans. Bats are also hosts of zoonotic bacteria although these are understudied. We here propose employing a bat model of four ecologically similar species that – like humans – live in large groups and densities to investigate the microbiome changes induced by CoVs and AstV infections in the gut. Our aim is to identity virus-microbiome interactions and their consequences on the bacterial species community and gene function level in order to understand which pathogenetic and potentially zoonotic virus-induced population-wide microbiome changes may arise in highly gregarious mammals. More than 6500 virus-screened samples from four Hipposideros species from five independent locations in central Ghana are already available from the previous DFG-funded program ‘German-African Cooperation Projects in Infectology’. In contrast to previous studies investigating microbiome changes in wild reservoir species, our study design provides the rare opportunity to control for phylogenetic and environmental variation which will enable us to discriminate between environmental, virus-induced and intrinsic factors.

脊椎动物的肠道微生物组不仅具有代谢功能，而且还是免疫机制的重要驱动力。为了履行这些角色，需要在肠道微生物社区内进行一些稳定和一致性。肠道病毒会干扰微生物群落的平衡，这可能导致继发感染并转向更高数量的致病微生物物种。如果这种情况发生在已知的病原体储层物种中，则可能会出现更高的人畜共患风险。蝙蝠构成了大量人畜共患病原体的进化起源和储层。其中包括Astroviruses（ASTV），这是儿童感染性腹泻的全球主要原因，以及构成最近引起高度致病性SARS和MERS流行病的病毒祖先的不同胃肠道冠状病毒（COV）物种。蝙蝠也是人畜共患细菌的宿主，尽管这些细菌已被研究了。在这里，我们采用了四种与人类一样的生态类似物种的蝙蝠模型，这些模型（与人类一样）生活在大型和密度中，以研究肠道中COV和ASTV感染引起的微生物组变化。我们的目的是识别病毒 - 微生物组的相互作用及其对细菌物种社区和基因功能水平的影响，以了解高度公平的哺乳动物可能会出现哪些病原性和潜在的人畜共患病毒诱导的人群诱导的微生物组变化。来自加纳中部五个独立地点的四个河马物种的6500多个病毒筛查样品已经从先前的DFG资助的计划“传染病中的德国 - 非洲合作项目”提供了。与先前研究野生储层物种微生物组变化的研究相反，我们的研究设计为控制系统发育和环境变异提供了难得的机会，这将使我们能够区分环境，病毒诱导的和内在的因素。