Announcing a latest article publication for Zoonoses journal. Bats are the hosts of multiple pathogens, however the microbial composition of their lung tissues stays unknown. This study investigates the species compositions and genera of essential respiratory tract pathogenic bacteria in bat lung tissue.

A microbiota study was conducted in Hebei, Henan and Guizhou provinces in China. Lung tissues were collected from 104 healthy bats. The lung tissue was subjected to 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid gene sequencing.

7,708,734 high-quality bacterial sequences were obtained from 104 healthy bats. Overall, the annotations indicated 55 phyla, 73 classes, 164 orders, 322 families and 953 genera. The lung microbiota was highly polymorphic and variable amongst bats from Hebei, Henan and Guizhou. The genetic characteristics of the most important recognized respiratory pathogens within the samples were analyzed.

The findings indicate that the lungs of bats carry quite a few bacteria with pathogenic importance. Pathogens disseminate through the respiratory tract in bats and are widely distributed amongst bats. Because bats prefer to inhabit areas placing them in close contact with humans, reminiscent of eaves and old buildings, further investigations are warranted to discover bat microbiota and their potential effects on humans.

Source:

Journal reference:

Zhao, N., et al. (2022) Microbial Communities within the Lungs of Bats in China. Zoonoses. doi.org/10.15212/ZOONOSES-2022-0033.