中科院武漢病毒研究所石正麗研究員帶領(lǐng)的研究團(tuán)隊(duì)采用宏基因組學(xué)方法,，對(duì)我國(guó)蝙蝠腸道病毒首次進(jìn)行了系統(tǒng)研究，結(jié)果發(fā)表在《病毒學(xué)雜志》（Journal of Virology）上（2012,， 86(8)：4620. DOI： 10.1128/JVI.06671-11）,。
蝙蝠是哺乳動(dòng)物中僅次于嚙齒目動(dòng)物的第二大類(lèi)群，也是已知的唯一具有飛翔能力的哺乳動(dòng)物,。如今,，越來(lái)越多的證據(jù)表明蝙蝠是多種新發(fā)病毒的自然宿主,，有些蝙蝠來(lái)源的病毒會(huì)導(dǎo)致人類(lèi)嚴(yán)重的病毒性疾病，如“著名”的亨德拉病毒,、尼帕病毒,、狂犬病毒、埃博拉病毒,、馬爾堡病毒等,。
病毒分離一直是最為直接的病毒研究方法，但是在現(xiàn)有實(shí)驗(yàn)室條件下很多病毒難以分離,；由于病毒之間缺少保守的基因標(biāo)記,，特異性PCR檢測(cè)難以系統(tǒng)研究樣品中的所有病毒（病毒組，Virome）,。而病毒核酸序列的隨機(jī)擴(kuò)增（sequence-independent amplification）,，結(jié)合高通量測(cè)序技術(shù)（high-throughput sequencing，如Solexa等）可以全面研究某一生境下的病毒組,。
石正麗研究員領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的研究小組用病毒宏基因組學(xué)方法,，系統(tǒng)地研究了中國(guó)6個(gè)不同地區(qū)的食蟲(chóng)蝙蝠糞便樣品中的病毒。結(jié)果顯示,，蝙蝠腸道中存在有大量濃核病毒（densoviruses）,、雙順?lè)醋硬《荆╠icistroviruses）、冠狀病毒（coronaviruses）,、細(xì)小病毒（parvoviruses）,、煙草花葉病毒（tobamoviruses）等。這些病毒的宿主涵蓋了脊椎動(dòng)物,、無(wú)脊椎動(dòng)物,、植物。此外,，本研究發(fā)現(xiàn)的大多數(shù)病毒序列與已知的病毒基因組（或蛋白序列）同源性很低,，證明蝙蝠腸道有大量新的昆蟲(chóng)病毒、哺乳動(dòng)物病毒,，推測(cè)蝙蝠在這些病毒的傳播中起著重要的作用,。
本研究首次初步揭示了我國(guó)某些蝙蝠群體中的病毒組，對(duì)指導(dǎo)未來(lái)新病毒的發(fā)現(xiàn)和分離有重要意義,。（生物谷Bioon.com）
doi:10.1128/JVI.06671-11
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Metagenomic Analysis of Viruses from the Bat Fecal Samples Reveals Many Novel Viruses in Insectivorous Bats in China
Xingyi Ge1, Yan Li1, Xinglou Yang1, Huajun Zhang1, Peng Zhou1, Yunzhi Zhang2 and Zhengli Shi1,*
Increasing data indicate that bats harbor diverse viruses, some of which cause severe human diseases. In this study, sequence-independent amplification and high-throughput sequencing (Solexa) were applied to the metagenomic analysis of viruses in bat fecal samples collected from 6 locations in China. A total of 8,746,417 reads with a length of 306,124,595 bp were obtained. Among these reads, 13,541 (0.15%) had similarity to phage sequences and 9,170 (0.1%) had similarity to eukaryotic virus sequences. A total of 129 assembled contigs (>100nt) were constructed and compared with GenBank: 32 contigs were related to phages, and 97 were related to eukaryotic viruses. The most frequent reads and contigs related to eukaryotic viruses were homologous to densoviruses, dicistroviruses, coronaviruses, parvoviruses and tobamoviruses, a range that includes viruses from invertebrates, vertebrates and plants. Most of the contigs had low identities to known viral genomic or protein sequences, suggesting that a large number of novel and genetically diverse insect viruses as well as putative mammalian viruses are transmitted by bats in China. This study provides the first preliminary understanding of the virome of some bat populations in China, which may guide the discovery and isolation of novel viruses in the future.
