Experimental Tacaribe Virus Infection of Jamaican Fruit Bats

描述（由申请人提供）：蝙蝠最近被证明携带几种人类疾病的传染性病原体，包括sars样冠状病毒、亨尼帕病毒和丝状病毒。Tacaribe病毒是一种可引起人类出血热的沙粒病毒，仅从特立尼达捕获的果蝠（Artibeus spp.）中分离出来。目前尚不清楚这些蝙蝠是否是Tacaribe病毒的天然储存库，但我们已经证明，低剂量感染可导致至少45天的持续感染而没有明显的疾病症状。此外，高剂量感染引起的致命疾病与其他沙粒病毒引起的南美出血热有一些相似之处，包括神经系统表现和出血。本项目将详细描述牙买加果蝠实验感染Tacaribe病毒的病理和免疫反应，以确定该物种是否可以作为沙病毒发病机制的宿主和合适的动物模型。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Bats have recently been shown to harbor several infectious agents of human disease, including SARS-like coronaviruses, henipaviruses and filoviruses. Tacaribe virus, an arenavirus that can cause hemorrhagic fever in humans, has only been isolated from fruit bats (Artibeus spp.) captured in Trinidad. It is unknown if these bats are a natural reservoir of Tacaribe virus, but we have demonstrated that low-dose infection can cause persistent infection for at least 45 days without conspicuous symptoms of disease. In addition, high-dose infection causes a fatal disease that has some similarity to the South American hemorrhagic fevers that are caused by other arenaviruses, including neurological manifestations and hemorrhaging. This project will detail the pathological and immunological responses of Jamaican fruit bats experimentally infected with Tacaribe virus in an effort to determine if the species can be a reservoir and a suitable animal model for arenavirus pathogenesis. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Arenaviruses can cause fatal hemorrhagic fevers in humans. Little is known about the pathogenesis of these viruses and the work proposed here will examine the pathology and immunology of one such virus, Tacaribe virus, in its suspect reservoir animal, the Jamaican fruit bat.