{"id":1478,"date":"2020-10-28T08:27:32","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T08:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizon.peachpuff-wolverine-566518.hostingersite.com\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2020-10-28T08:27:50","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T08:27:50","slug":"five-things-you-need-to-know-about-bats-disease-and-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/1478\/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-bats-disease-and-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Five things you need to know about bats, disease and coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bats are in the limelight these days because they are rumoured to be the source of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the coronavirus pandemic. But that is just part of their story. Bats turn out to be miraculous creatures. Their ability to age without decrepitude or cancer, as well as fight off a multitude of infections, are giving us clues about how to do the same for ourselves.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Professor Emma Teeling is co-founder of\u00a0Bat 1K<\/a>, an initiative to sequence the genomes of all bat species. She is a zoologist and geneticist at University College Dublin, Ireland, and talked to Horizon about what she has discovered.<\/p>\n

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  1. Bats have many anti-ageing genetic tricks<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Normally, the bigger the mammal, the longer it lives. If they followed this pattern, the longest lived bat would only live for up to four years. But they defy this rule and can live beyond 40, which makes them the longest lived mammal for body size. The Bat 1K consortium unpicked\u00a0six bat genomes<\/a>, discovering that genes that we already know are related to ageing in humans, are altered in bats. These genes \u2013 and probably others, as yet undiscovered \u2013 are behind the many things bats do to combat ageing.<\/p>\n

    One of their tricks is to assiduously \u2018mop up\u2019 and dispose of the detritus that lies around cells as they get older \u2013 a process known as autophagy. They also\u00a0maintain their telomeres<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the caps on the ends of chromosomes that gradually unravel as the years go by, leading to ageing effects or cancer.<\/p>\n

    \u2018What is quite extraordinary is that we\u2019ve discovered they actually step up their DNA maintenance as they age \u2013 the opposite of what happens in other mammals,\u2019 said Prof. Teeling.<\/p>\n

    Humans suffer from increased inflammation as they age, which causes conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. But Prof. Teeling and her team have discovered that bats have lost some of the genes involved in inflammation. They seem to balance their immune systems between inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses to keep it under control.<\/p>\n

    Some scientists think bats developed these mechanisms in order to be able to fly \u2013 they are the only mammal capable of self-propelled flight and that takes a lot of energy. When the organelles responsible for energy generation \u2013 the mitochondria \u2013 are very active that can cause a lot of damage to DNA. Prof. Teeling\u2019s theory \u2013 unproven as yet – is that they may have\u00a0developed all these fixes<\/a>\u00a0to cope with that.<\/p>\n

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    1. Bats don\u2019t get sick from viruses<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Bats are also stocked with many genes responsible for anti-viral activity and they always have their anti-viral mechanisms switched on. This is probably why, despite getting infected with Marburg virus disease, Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), they don\u2019t actually get sick: as soon as these viruses invade, the bats can deftly modulate their immune systems to neutralise them.<\/p>\n

      In fact, bats\u2019 immune systems seem to be in a never-ending evolutionary race with viruses, each altering to outwit the other. The traces of some of these historic battles, in the form of clips of genetic material from viruses, can be found scattered within bat DNA.<\/p>\n

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      1. It\u2019s not yet proven that bats transmitted the virus behind Covid-19 to humans<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Some researchers think that the unique immune system of bats forces viruses to rapidly evolve within them, creating a unique breeding ground for viruses that could potentially hop between species. Other researchers point out that many mammals have transmitted viruses to humans, including pigs (swine influenza) and chimpanzees (HIV).<\/p>\n

        Nevertheless, bats do harbour a huge variety of coronaviruses and are the suspected reservoir for many diseases, including Nipah and Hendra virus infections, Marburg virus disease, and strains of Influenza A virus.<\/p>\n

        Whether they had a role in conveying SARS-CoV-2 to humans is debated amongst bat experts.<\/p>\n

        Prof. Teeling was part of a\u00a0team<\/a>\u00a0that recently published\u00a0research that questions whether bats could be the direct culprits<\/a>. Famously, the virus gains entry to human cells by latching onto ACE2 receptors on their surfaces. The team, led by Professor Harris Lewin of the University of California in the US, predicted that the ACE2 receptors on bat cells can\u2019t be \u2018unlocked\u2019 by the novel coronavirus.<\/p>\n

        \u2018It looks like the virus can\u2019t get into bat cells. It\u2019s actually a primate disease,\u2019 said Prof.Teeling. There\u2019s absolutely no published evidence that bats can be naturally infected with Sars-Cov-2, she adds.<\/p>\n

        But other research has shown that the immediate ancestor of SARS-CoV-2\u00a0was<\/em>\u00a0likely to have originated in a species of bat. One possibility, therefore, is that bats passed this ancestor onto another species, where it evolved to become SARS-CoV-2, and that intermediate host then passed it to humans.<\/p>\n

        There is consensus, however, that once land is converted for human use, bats (and other mammals) encounter other species more closely, providing opportunities for viruses to jump between them. Bats, in particular, can be driven close to human habitation because of artificial light, fruit orchards and nesting places.<\/p>\n

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        \u2018There\u2019s absolutely no published evidence that bats can be naturally infected.\u2019<\/p>\n

        Prof. Emma Teeling<\/p>\n

        <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
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        1. Bats may help us prolong our own lifespans and fight off disease<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          By understanding how bats manage to avoid falling sick with viral infections, scientists may come up with therapies for humans. In particular, the sensitive way in which they manage to swiftly neutralise viruses, but then turn off their inflammation before it becomes so strong it can cause damage itself, is something scientists want to understand. \u2018They are going to teach us how we can modulate our own immune responses to tolerate and live with infections better,\u2019 said Prof. Teeling.<\/p>\n

          It might also be possible to exploit the secrets of their youthfulness, she says. As well as expressing some ageing genes differently, bats also have genes that humans don\u2019t have. Some of these are expressed more as they age \u2013 and\u00a0others less<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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          1. Bats maintain a healthy environment for humans<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Bats have been\u00a0killed, burned out of their roosts and attacked with water cannons<\/a>\u00a0out of fear they are spreading the SARS-Cov-2 virus \u2013 but they are essential to many ecosystems. They are major pollinators in the tropics \u2013 including for valuable crops such as bananas, mangos and guavas. They also disperse the seeds of hundreds of plants.<\/p>\n

            Bats are \u2018keystone predators\u2019, which means that their various activities help maintain the balance of the ecosystem. They regulate insects, eating their own bodyweight in them every night. Many of these are crop-destroying insects, such as aphids. In places where certain pesticides have been banned, they are an increasingly important agent of biological control. In some places, bats prey on insects that transmit disease to humans, such as mosquitoes that transmit malaria or Zika virus. \u2018They\u2019re very, very important for multiple reasons,\u2019 said Prof. Teeling<\/p>\n

            Prof. Teeling has previously received a grant from the EU’s European Research Council for the\u00a0AGELESS\u00a0<\/a>project. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.<\/em><\/p>\n

            Published by Horizon<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            Bats are in the limelight these days because they are rumoured to be the source of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the coronavirus pandemic. But that is just part of their story. Bats turn out to be miraculous creatures. Their ability to age without decrepitude or cancer, as well as fight off a multitude of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":316,"featured_media":1479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"yoast_head":"\nFive things you need to know about bats, disease and coronavirus - Horizon Magazine Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/1478\/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-bats-disease-and-coronavirus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five things you need to know about bats, disease and coronavirus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bats are in the limelight these days because they are rumoured to be the source of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the coronavirus pandemic. 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