Activity of BatIFIT5 in different species of healthy and naturally infected with rabies virus bats.

Abstract

Bats are mammals with vital role played in numerous ecosystem services, however bats can be important reservoirs or hosts for several microorganisms. Rabies is a zoonosis caused by Rabies lyssavirus (RABV) that affects the central nervous system (CNS) of all mammals, including bats and humans. The action of IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs) could be responsible for inhibiting different stages of the viral replication cycle. A major family of ISGs are the Interferon-induced proteins with tetrapeptide repeats (IFITs) and your action against infections caused by viruses from different families was proven. This study describes the expression of BatIFIT5 by RT-qPCR in different species of healthy and naturally infected with RABV bats. A total, of 36 bats were analyzed (18 positive and 18 negative for rabies) and 16 (44.44%) were positive for BatIFIT5. Here we analyzed fourteen species of bats with different eating and behavioral habits. Seven genetics lineages of RABV were evaluated and included in these 14 species of bats, no cases of RABV spillover were identified. In addition, we did not verified relationship between the bat species expression of BatIFIT5 and RABV. Many points about immunology of bats are unknown and here we analyzed one of these points.