Discovery and biological confirmation of a highly divergent Tacaribe virus in metatranscriptomic data from neotropical bats.

ABSTRACT: First isolated from neotropical fruit bats in Trinidad in 1956, Tacaribe virus (TCRV) has rarely been detected since. We searched for New World arenavirus reads in roughly 5.7 million sequencing runs available on public databases using Serratus. We recovered a complete genome of a divergent TCRV in metatranscriptomic data derived from heart and eye tissue of an adult male Jamaican fruit-eating bat sampled in the Dominican Republic, 2014. In total, 2,733 reads were mapped resulting in mean coverages of 7.4-fold for the L and 10.2-fold for the S segment. Re-testing original bat specimens showed the highest viral loads in liver tissue (245 copies/mg). Sanger sequencing of PCR amplicons from liver confirmed correctness of and completed the genome recovered from metatranscriptomic data, reveali

SUBMITTER: Fischer C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11520282 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature