Microbiome analysis reveals the abundance of bacterial pathogens in Rousettus leschenaultii guano

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 36948
• Main Authors: Banskar, Sunil, Bhute, Shrikant S., Suryavanshi, Mangesh V., Punekar, Sachin, Shouche, Yogesh S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 15-11-2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 45/29; 49/22; 631/326/2565/855; 631/326/421; Abundance; Animals; Bacteria; Bats; Chiroptera - microbiology; Culture media; Databases, Factual; E coli; Ecosystems; Enterobacteriaceae - genetics; Enterobacteriaceae - isolation & purification; Enterobacteriaceae - pathogenicity; Escherichia coli; Escherichia coli - genetics; Escherichia coli - isolation & purification; Escherichia coli - pathogenicity; Guano; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Microbiota; multidisciplinary; Pathogens; Principal Component Analysis; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S - chemistry; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S - isolation & purification; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S - metabolism; rRNA; Science; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Virulence - genetics
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep36948

Bats are crucial for proper functioning of an ecosystem. They provide various important services to ecosystem and environment. While, bats are well-known carrier of pathogenic viruses, their possible role as a potential carrier of pathogenic bacteria is under-explored. Here, using culture-based approach, employing multiple bacteriological media, over thousand bacteria were cultivated and identified from
Rousettus leschenaultii
(a frugivorous bat species), the majority of which were from the family
Enterobacteriaceae
and putative pathogens. Next, pathogenic potential of most frequently cultivated component of microbiome i.e.
Escherichia coli
was assessed to identify its known pathotypes which revealed the presence of virulent factors in many cultivated
E. coli
isolates. Applying in-depth bacterial community analysis using high-throughput 16 S rRNA gene sequencing, a high inter-individual variation was observed among the studied guano samples. Interestingly, a higher diversity of bacterial communities was observed in decaying guano representative. The search against human pathogenic bacteria database at 97% identity, a small proportion of sequences were found associated to well-known human pathogens. The present study thus indicates that this bat species may carry potential bacterial pathogens and advice to study the effect of these pathogens on bats itself and the probable mode of transmission to humans and other animals.