A multiregional serosurvey of RNA virus-reactive antibodies in bats and rodents reveals the enzootic presence of flavi- and paramyxoviruses in African Pteropodidae
24 affiliations
- 1Institute of Virology, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
- 2German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Berlin, Germany.
- 3International Vaccine Institute (IVI), Seoul, Korea.
- 4Institute for Experimental Immunology, affiliated to EUROIMMUN Medizinische Labordiagnostika AG, Lübeck, Germany.
- 5Institute of Virology, Medical Faculty, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
- 6German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Partner Site Bonn-Cologne, Bonn, Germany.
- 7Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital of Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
- 8Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC), Cologne, Germany.
- 9Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Berlin, Germany.
- 10Fledermaus-Rausch-Umweltgutachten, Flintbek, Germany.
- 11Department of Medicine II, Division of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
- 12Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Ancon, Panama.
- 13Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherches Médicales de Franceville (CIRMF), Franceville, Gabon.
- 14Institut National Supérieur d'Agronomie et de Biotechnologies (INSAB), Université des Sciences et Techniques de Masuku (USTM), Franceville, Gabon.
- 15Department of Arbovirology and Entomology, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany.
- 16Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
- 17Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic.
- 18Department of Wildlife and Range Management, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
- 19Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
- 20Center for infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
- 21Division Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Department Biomolecular Health Sciences, Faculty Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
- 22Institute of Novel and Emerging Infectious Diseases, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany.
- 23Recherches translationnelles sur le VIH et les maladies infectieuses (TransVIHMI), Université de Montpellier-IRD-Inserm, Montpellier, France.
- 24Centre for Pathogen Evolution, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Abstract
Bats and rodents have been identified as reservoir hosts of diverse RNA viruses that pose potential risks to humans. However, overall virus prevalence in wildlife and underlying factors determining the zoonotic potential of reservoir-borne viruses remain poorly characterized. Virus detection often relies on the identification of viral nucleotide sequences and may therefore be limited by variable virus concentration, tissue tropism, sample quality, and duration of infection. In this study, we applied a multiplex immunofluorescence assay to examine bat and rodent seroprevalence against 14 different human pathogenic RNA viruses spanning seven virus families (Coronaviridae, Flaviviridae, Hantaviridae, Paramyxoviridae, Phenuiviridae, Pneumoviridae, Togaviridae). We retrospectively analyzed 1,135 bat (16 species) and 454 rodent (14 species) blood or transudate specimens collected at 63 sites in seven countries. The tropical bats in our dataset exhibited notably high rates of seropositivity against certain virus families (Flaviviridae: 42.7%; Paramyxoviridae: 67.7%; Togaviridae: 7.5%). Although confounding factors and sparse data continue to pose challenges to identifying correlates of RNA virus infection in wildlife, multivariable logistic regression models were created to provisionally evaluate the association of tropical bat characteristics with seropositivity. Preliminary findings indicate that large colony size, found among species such as Eidolon helvum and Rousettus aegyptiacus, is a predictor within this dataset of orthoflavi- and orthorubulavirus seroprevalence, consistent with the communal spread of bat-adapted viruses. Author summary: Many animal populations carry viruses that have the potential to spill over to humans and cause severe disease. Despite surveillance efforts, it is logistically challenging to detect virus infections in wildlife, as viruses may have a short duration of infection or unknown routes of transmission. In this study, we examined blood and transudate samples from rodents and bats at 63 sites in seven countries for antibodies against 14 different viruses from seven virus families known to cause disease in humans. We analyzed the samples via a mosaic chip-based immunofluorescence test, which has the advantage of detecting antibodies against whole-virus antigen. This method allows for broad surveillance, as we would also expect to uncover evidence of past infection with bat- and rodent-adapted viruses that are related, but not identical, to known human pathogens. We detected antibodies against all seven virus families we examined, with especially high detection rates of antibodies in tropical bats. Although confounding factors and sparse data continue to pose challenges to identifying correlates of RNA virus infection in wildlife, we used the results to construct multivariable logistic regression models of tropical bat seroprevalence to examine potential associations between tropical bat characteristics and previous infection by certain virus families. Bats with large colony sizes, such as Eidolon helvum and Rousettus aegyptiacus, showed higher seropositivity against orthoflavi- and orthorubulavirus antigen compared to other tropical bat species.
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BibTeX
@article{emanuel2026multiregional,
title = {{A multiregional serosurvey of RNA virus-reactive antibodies in bats and rodents reveals the enzootic presence of flavi- and paramyxoviruses in African Pteropodidae}},
author = {Jackson Emanuel and Jan Papies and Leonie Meiners and Talitha Veith and Victor M Corman and Tabea Binger and Erik Lattwein and Beate M Kümmerer and Susanne Zweerink and Kai Fechner and Florian Gloza-Rausch and Veronika Cottontail and Gaël D Maganga and Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit and Peter Vallo and Samuel K Oppong and Marco Tschapka and Chantal B E M Reusken and Rainer G Ulrich and Eric M Leroy and Jan Felix Drexler and Terry C Jones and Christian Drosten and Marcel A Müller},
journal = {PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pntd.0013689},
url = {https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0013689},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - A multiregional serosurvey of RNA virus-reactive antibodies in bats and rodents reveals the enzootic presence of flavi- and paramyxoviruses in African Pteropodidae
AU - Jackson Emanuel
AU - Jan Papies
AU - Leonie Meiners
AU - Talitha Veith
AU - Victor M Corman
AU - Tabea Binger
AU - Erik Lattwein
AU - Beate M Kümmerer
AU - Susanne Zweerink
AU - Kai Fechner
AU - Florian Gloza-Rausch
AU - Veronika Cottontail
AU - Gaël D Maganga
AU - Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit
AU - Peter Vallo
AU - Samuel K Oppong
AU - Marco Tschapka
AU - Chantal B E M Reusken
AU - Rainer G Ulrich
AU - Eric M Leroy
AU - Jan Felix Drexler
AU - Terry C Jones
AU - Christian Drosten
AU - Marcel A Müller
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
JO - PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
DO - 10.1371/journal.pntd.0013689
UR - https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0013689
AB - Bats and rodents have been identified as reservoir hosts of diverse RNA viruses that pose potential risks to humans. However, overall virus prevalence in wildlife and underlying factors determining the zoonotic potential of reservoir-borne viruses remain poorly characterized. Virus detection often relies on the identification of viral nucleotide sequences and may therefore be limited by variable virus concentration, tissue tropism, sample quality, and duration of infection. In this study, we applied a multiplex immunofluorescence assay to examine bat and rodent seroprevalence against 14 different human pathogenic RNA viruses spanning seven virus families (Coronaviridae, Flaviviridae, Hantaviridae, Paramyxoviridae, Phenuiviridae, Pneumoviridae, Togaviridae). We retrospectively analyzed 1,135 bat (16 species) and 454 rodent (14 species) blood or transudate specimens collected at 63 sites in seven countries. The tropical bats in our dataset exhibited notably high rates of seropositivity against certain virus families (Flaviviridae: 42.7%; Paramyxoviridae: 67.7%; Togaviridae: 7.5%). Although confounding factors and sparse data continue to pose challenges to identifying correlates of RNA virus infection in wildlife, multivariable logistic regression models were created to provisionally evaluate the association of tropical bat characteristics with seropositivity. Preliminary findings indicate that large colony size, found among species such as Eidolon helvum and Rousettus aegyptiacus, is a predictor within this dataset of orthoflavi- and orthorubulavirus seroprevalence, consistent with the communal spread of bat-adapted viruses. Author summary: Many animal populations carry viruses that have the potential to spill over to humans and cause severe disease. Despite surveillance efforts, it is logistically challenging to detect virus infections in wildlife, as viruses may have a short duration of infection or unknown routes of transmission. In this study, we examined blood and transudate samples from rodents and bats at 63 sites in seven countries for antibodies against 14 different viruses from seven virus families known to cause disease in humans. We analyzed the samples via a mosaic chip-based immunofluorescence test, which has the advantage of detecting antibodies against whole-virus antigen. This method allows for broad surveillance, as we would also expect to uncover evidence of past infection with bat- and rodent-adapted viruses that are related, but not identical, to known human pathogens. We detected antibodies against all seven virus families we examined, with especially high detection rates of antibodies in tropical bats. Although confounding factors and sparse data continue to pose challenges to identifying correlates of RNA virus infection in wildlife, we used the results to construct multivariable logistic regression models of tropical bat seroprevalence to examine potential associations between tropical bat characteristics and previous infection by certain virus families. Bats with large colony sizes, such as Eidolon helvum and Rousettus aegyptiacus, showed higher seropositivity against orthoflavi- and orthorubulavirus antigen compared to other tropical bat species.
SN - 1935-2735
SN - 1935-2727
ER -