Origin and cross-species transmission of bat coronaviruses in China
Bats are presumed reservoirs of diverse coronaviruses (CoVs) including progenitors of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19. However, the evolution and diversification of these coronaviruses remains poorly understood. Here we use a Bayesian statistical framework and a large sequence data set from bat-CoVs (including 589 novel CoV sequences) in China to study their macroevolution, cross-species transmission and dispersal. We find that host-switching occurs more frequently and across more distantly related host taxa in alpha- than beta-CoVs, and is more highly constrained by phylogenetic distance for beta-CoVs. We show that inter-family and -genus switching is most common in Rhinolophidae and the genus Rhinolophus. Our analyses identify the host taxa and geographic regions that define hotspots of CoV evolutionary diversity in China that could help target bat-CoV discovery for proactive zoonotic disease surveillance. Finally, we present a phylogenetic analysis suggesting a likely origin for SARS-CoV-2 in Rhinolophus spp. bats.
Authors
- Jonathan H. Epstein (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1373-9301)
- Aleksei A. Chmura (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5544-0431)
- Libiao Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6919-7695)
- Kevin J. Olival (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3211-1875)
- Carlos Zambrana‐Torrelio (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5614-7496)
- Lin‐Fa Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2752-0535)
- Peter Daszak (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2046-5695)
- Hume Field (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4671-7002)
- Alice Latinne (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1249-2025)
- Bei Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-6702-4276)
- Zheng‐Li Shi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8089-163X)
- Hongying Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5089-1134)
- Guangjian Zhu
- Ben Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9194-3474)
- Wei Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2957-8626)
Institutions
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Guangdong Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Wuhan Institute of Virology (CN)
- Duke-NUS Medical School (SG)
- Wildlife Conservation Society Fiji (FJ)
- Institute of Zoology (CN)
- EcoHealth Alliance (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2024-12-19
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-55384-7
- Citations
- 26
- Primary Topic
- Bat Biology and Ecology Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 26.76
Funders
- United States Agency for International Development
- EcoHealth Alliance
- National Research Foundation
- National Research Foundation Singapore
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases