Magboi virus (MGBV) is a novel, bat-borne Orthohantavirus discovered in a slit-faced bat trapped near the Magboi Stream in eastern Sierra Leone in 2011. It is a single-stranded, negative sense, RNA virus in the Bunyavirales order.Weiss S, Witkowski PT, Auste B, Nowak K, Weber N, Fahr J, et al. Hantavirus in bat, Sierra Leone [letter]. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet]. 2012 JanJung YT, Kim GR. Genomic characterization of M and S RNA segments of hantaviruses isolated from bats. Acta Virol. 1995;39:231–3.Calisher CH, Childs JE, Field HE, Holmes KV, Schountz T. Bats: important reservoir hosts of emerging viruses. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2006;19:531–45.Krüger DH, Schonrich G, Klempa B. Human pathogenic hantaviruses and prevention of infection. Hum Vaccin. 2011;7:685–93.
Molecular virology
The discovery represented the first time a hantavirus was detected in a bat, although bats as a reservoir for hantavirus had been long suspected. On the basis of a maximum-likelihood phylogenetic tree, the sequence isolated from the Magboi River bat does not cluster with rodent-associated hantaviruses but groups with those found in shrews and moles. This raises the question of the real hantavirus host range. Bats are already known to harbor a broad variety of emerging pathogens, including other bunyaviruses. Their ability to fly and social life history enable efficient pathogen maintenance, evolution, and spread.Calisher CH, Childs JE, Field HE, Holmes KV, Schountz T Bats: important reservoir hosts of emerging viruses. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2006;19:531–45. doi: 10.1128/CMR.00017-06. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Cross Ref]Murphy WJ, Eizirik E, Johnson WE, Zhang YP, Ryder OA, O’Brien SJ Molecular phylogenetics and the origins of placental mammals. Nature. 2001;409:614–8. doi: 10.1038/35054550. [PubMed] [Cross Ref]
See also Sangassou virus Bat-borne virus
References