Genomic features of humoral immunity support tolerance model in Egyptian rousette bats
Peter A. Larson,
Maggie L. Bartlett,
Karla Garcia,
Joseph Chitty,
Anne Balkema-Buschmann,
Jonathan Towner,
Jeffrey Kugelman,
Gustavo Palacios,
Mariano Sanchez-Lockhart
Affiliations
Peter A. Larson
Center for Genome Sciences, US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21702, USA
Maggie L. Bartlett
Center for Genome Sciences, US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21702, USA; Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198, USA
Karla Garcia
Center for Genome Sciences, US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21702, USA; Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198, USA
Joseph Chitty
Center for Genome Sciences, US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21702, USA
Viral Special Pathogens Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30329, USA
Jeffrey Kugelman
Center for Genome Sciences, US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21702, USA
Gustavo Palacios
Center for Genome Sciences, US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21702, USA; Corresponding author
Mariano Sanchez-Lockhart
Center for Genome Sciences, US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21702, USA; Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198, USA; Corresponding author
Summary: Bats asymptomatically harbor many viruses that can cause severe human diseases. The Egyptian rousette bat (ERB) is the only known reservoir for Marburgviruses and Sosuga virus, making it an exceptional animal model to study antiviral mechanisms in an asymptomatic host. With this goal in mind, we constructed and annotated the immunoglobulin heavy chain locus, finding an expansion on immunoglobulin variable genes associated with protective human antibodies to different viruses. We also annotated two functional and distinct immunoglobulin epsilon genes and four distinctive functional immunoglobulin gamma genes. We described the Fc receptor repertoire in ERBs, including features that may affect activation potential, and discovered the lack of evolutionary conserved short pentraxins. These findings reinforce the hypothesis that a differential threshold of regulation and/or absence of key immune mediators may promote tolerance and decrease inflammation in ERBs.
