Discovery and biological confirmation of a highly divergent Tacaribe virus in metatranscriptomic data from neotropical bats.

First isolated from neotropical fruit bats in Trinidad in 1956, Tacaribe virus (TCRV) has rarely been detected since. We searched for New World arenavirus reads in roughly 5.7 million sequencing runs available on public databases using Serratus. We recovered a complete genome of a divergent TCRV in metatranscriptomic data derived from heart and eye tissue of an adult male Jamaican fruit-eating bat sampled in the Dominican Republic, 2014. In total, 2,733 reads were mapped resulting in mean coverages of 7.4-fold for the L and 10.2-fold for the S segment. Re-testing original bat specimens showed the highest viral loads in liver tissue (245 copies/mg). Sanger sequencing of PCR amplicons from liver confirmed correctness of and completed the genome recovered from metatranscriptomic data, revealing conserved arenavirus genomic organization, length, intergenic regions, and genome termini. The newly found TCRV strain tentatively named DOM2014 clustered in a basal sister relationship to all other known TCRV strains with which it shared between 83.3%-86.0% genomic and 91.8%-93.7% translated amino acid sequence identity across protein-coding regions. DOM2014 showed a conserved glycine, proline, proline, threonine (GPPT) nucleoprotein motif, which is essential for TCRV interferon β antagonism. Our data confirm the association of TCRV with the bat genus Artibeus put into question by lethal experimental infections and scarce bat-derived TCRV genomic data. Broad genetic diversity and geographic spread require assessments of TCRV strain-associated pathogenicity, particularly for DOM2014 as a highly divergent TCRV strain. Confirmation of genomic database findings by testing original specimens provides robustness to our findings and supports the usefulness of metatranscriptomic studies.
Importance: Clade B New World arenaviruses (NWA) include rodent-borne lethal hemorrhagic fever viruses, whereas Tacaribe virus (TCRV) stands out because of its detection in bats and its presumably low zoonotic potential. However, the bat association of TCRV was put into question by lethal experimental neotropical fruit bat infections and rare TCRV detection in bats. Scarce genomic data include near-identical viruses from Caribbean bats and ticks from the US sampled 50 years later. The prototype TCRV isolate used for experimental risk assessments has an extensive passage history in suckling mouse brains. Exploring the true genetic diversity, geographic distribution, and host range of bat-borne NWA is pivotal to assess their zoonotic potential and transmission cycles. We analyzed metatranscriptomic data for evidence of NWA identifying a highly divergent TCRV in bats and confirmed virus detection in original biological materials, supporting the association of TCRV with neotropical bats and warranting investigation of strain-associated TCRV pathogenicity.
Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.