Genetic diversity of novel circular ssDNA viruses in bats in China

Abstract

Novel circular ssDNA genomes have recently been detected in animals and in the environment using metagenomic and high-throughput sequencing approaches. In this study, five full-length circular ssDNA genomes were recovered from bat faecal samples using inverse PCR with sequences designed based on circovirus-related sequences obtained from Solexa sequencing data derived from a random amplification method. These five sequences shared a similar genomic organization to circovirus or the recently proposed cyclovirus of the family Circoviridae. The newly obtained circovirus/cyclovirus-like genomes ranged from 1741 to 2177 bp, and each consisted of two major ORFs, ORF1 and ORF2, encoding putative replicase (Rep) and capsid (Cap) proteins, respectively. The potential stem–loop region was predicted in all five genomes, and three of them had the typical conserved nonanucleotide motif of cycloviruses. A set of primers targeting the conserved Rep region was designed and used to detect the prevalence of circovirus/cyclovirus sequences in individual bats. Among 199 samples tested, 47 were positive (23.6 %) for the circovirus genome and two (1.0 %) were positive for the cyclovirus genome. In total, 48 partial Rep sequences plus the five full-length genomes were obtained in this study. Detailed analysis indicated that these sequences are distantly related to known circovirus/cyclovirus genomes and may represent 22 novel species that belong to the family Circoviridae.