Diet-induced changes in metabolism influence immune response and viral shedding in Jamaican fruit bats
Land-use change may drive viral spillover from bats into humans, partly through dietary shifts caused by decreased availability of native foods and increased availability of cultivated foods. We experimentally manipulated diets of Jamaican fruit bats to investigate whether diet influences viral shedding. To reflect dietary changes experienced by wild bats during periods of nutritional stress, Jamaican fruit bats were fed either a standard diet or a putative suboptimal diet, which was deprived of protein (suboptimal-sugar diet) and/or supplemented with fat (suboptimal-fat diet). Upon H18N11 influenza A-virus infection, bats fed on the suboptimal-sugar diet shed the most viral RNA for the longest period, but bats fed the suboptimal-fat diet shed the least viral RNA for the shortest period. Bats on both suboptimal diets ate more food than the standard diet, suggesting nutritional changes may alter foraging behaviour. This study serves as an initial step in understanding whether and how dietary shifts may influence viral dynamics in bats, which alters the risk of spillover to humans.
Authors
- Raina K. Plowright (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3338-6590)
- Eric Bohrnsen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4327-5242)
- Monica Hall (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4009-4617)
- Agnieszka Rynda‐Apple (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4333-9971)
- Madison J. Hebner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4415-762X)
- Tony Schountz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1292-7650)
- Daniel Crowley (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4262-253X)
- Benjamin Schwarz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5894-953X)
- Caylee Falvo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1520-137X)
- Wenjun Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0395-9404)
- Manuel Ruiz‐Aravena (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8463-7858)
- Evelyn Benson
Institutions
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- Montana State University (US)
- Missouri College (US)
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (US)
- University of Missouri (US)
- Colorado State University (US)
- Mississippi State University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
- Published
- 2025-02-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.2482
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Viral Infections and Vectors
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 9.77
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Institutes of Health
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency