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Bats are increasingly being recognized as important natural reservoirs of different viruses. Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) are widely distributed in primates and their distribution in bats is unknown. In this study, a total of 370 faecal swab samples from 19 bat species were collected from various provinces of China and examined for the presence of AAVs. The mean prevalence rate was 22.4 % (83 positives out of 370 samples), ranging from 10 to 38.9 % among different bat species. The genome sequence spanning the entire rep–cap ORFs was determined from one chosen AAV-positive sample (designated BtAAV-YNM). Phylogenetic analysis of the entire rep–cap ORF coding sequences suggested that BtAAV-YNM is relatively distant to known primate AAVs, but phylogenetically closer to porcine AAV strain Po3. Further analysis of the partial cap ORF sequences of bat AAV samples (n=49) revealed a remarkably large genetic diversity, with an average pairwise nucleotide identity of only 84.3 %. Co-presence of multiple distinctive genotypes of bat AAV within an individual sample was also observed. These results demonstrated that diverse AAVs might be widely distributed in bat populations.
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Journal of General Virology vol. 91 , part 10, pp. 2601 - 2609
Supplementary Fig. S1. Similarity of Rep and Cap proteins between BtAAV-YNM and other AAVs
Supplementary Fig. S2. Similarity plot of genomes between BtAAV-YNM and other AAVs
Supplementary Fig. S3. Large-scale maximum-likelihood (ML) phylogeny of all available and relevant AAVs [Single PDF file](251 KB)