PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Anitha D. Jayaprakash
AU  - Adam J. Ronk
AU  - Abhishek N. Prasad
AU  - Michael F. Covington
AU  - Kathryn R. Stein
AU  - Toni M. Schwarz
AU  - Saboor Hekmaty
AU  - Karla A. Fenton
AU  - Thomas W Geisbert
AU  - Christopher F. Basler
AU  - Alexander Bukreyev
AU  - Ravi Sachidanandam
TI  - Filovirus infection induces an anti-inflammatory state in Rousettus bats
AID  - 10.1101/2020.04.13.039503
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.04.13.039503
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/04/15/2020.04.13.039503.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/04/15/2020.04.13.039503.full
AB  - The filoviruses Ebola (EBOV) and Marburg (MARV) cause severe disease in humans. In contrast, the Egyptian rousette bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus), a natural reservoir of MARV, exhibits a subclinical phenotype with limited MARV replication and nearly undetectable EBOV replication. Rousettus cell lines support replication of filoviruses, however. To understand the bat-filovirus interaction, transcriptomes of tissues from EBOV- and MARV-infected R. aegyptiacus bats were analyzed. While viral transcripts were only detected in liver, a systemic response was observed involving other tissues as well. By focusing on evolutionarily divergent (from human homologues) protein-coding genes, we identified novel transcriptional pathways that suggest infected bats exhibit impaired coagulation, vasodilation, aberrant iron regulation, and impaired complement system leading to muted antibody responses. Furthermore, a robust T-cell response and an anti-inflammatory state driven by M2 macrophages were identified. These processes likely control infection and limit pathology. All data can be freely explored and downloaded through our tools (http://katahdin.girihlet.com/shiny/bat/).Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.