TY - JOUR T1 - SARS-like coronaviruses in horseshoe bats (<em>Rhinolophus</em> spp.) in Russia, 2020 JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2021.05.17.444362 SP - 2021.05.17.444362 AU - Sergey V. Alkhovsky AU - Sergey V. Lenshin AU - Alexey V. Romashin AU - Tatyana V. Vishnevskaya AU - Oleg I. Vyshemirsky AU - Yulia I. Bulycheva AU - Dmitry K. Lvov AU - Asya K. Gitelman Y1 - 2021/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/05/25/2021.05.17.444362.abstract N2 - We found and genetically described two novel SARS-like coronaviruses in feces and oral swabs of the great (R. ferrumequinum) and the lesser (R. hipposideros) horseshoe bats in southern region of Russia. The viruses, named Khosta-1 and Khosta-2, together with related viruses from Bulgaria and Kenya, form a separate phylogenetic lineage. We found an evidence of recombination events in evolutionary history of Khosta-1, which involved the acquisition of structural proteins S, E, and M as well as nonstructural genes ORF3, ORF6, ORF7a, and ORF7b from a virus that is closely related to Kenyan isolate BtKY72. Examination of bats by RT-PCR revealed that 62,5% of great horseshoe bats in one of the caves were positive for Khosta-1 virus while its overall prevalence was 14%. The prevalence of Khosta-2 was 1,75%. Our results show that SARS-like coronaviruses circulate in horseshoe bats in the region and provide a new data on their genetic diversity.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -