Bats' Genomic Defense Against Viruses and Cancer

Throughout their evolution, bats have gained extraordinary characteristics. They are the only mammals capable of flight and live far longer than other animals their size. Their strong immune system, however, is arguably most astonishing. It shields bats from viruses that cause havoc in people, such as COVID-19 and Ebola. It also helps to keep bats cancer-free.

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Bat's Genetic Secrets to Their Disease Resistance

According to experts at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, it's all in the genes (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Long-Read Sequencing Reveals Rapid Evolution of Immunity- and Cancer-Related Genes in Bats

Go to source). Professors W. Richard McCombie, Adam Siepel, and postdoc Armin Scheben sequenced the genomes of the Jamaican fruit bat and Mesoamerican mustached bat using samples acquired in Belize with Nancy Simmons from the American Museum of Natural History. When the researchers compared these sequences to those of other mammals, they discovered that rapid evolution has simplified bat genomes to protect against infection and cancer. McCombie elaborates, "We had no idea immune system genes were so highly selected in bat genomes." Bats have a lot of peculiar characteristics. They do not respond to infections in the same manner that we do. It's hardly unexpected, in retrospect, that this divergence in the immune system may be involved in both aging and cancer response."

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How Bats' Unique Genomic Adaptations Shed Light on Their Viral Tolerance

The Jamaican fruit bat and Mesoamerican mustached bat are members of the world's most ecologically varied mammal superfamily. McCombie, Siepel, and Scheben used new Oxford Nanopore sequencing technology to build entire genomes for both bats. They then compared these sequences to the genomes of 15 other bats and mammals, including humans. This indicated a previously unknown change in the levels of two inflammatory protein-coding genes known as interferon-alpha and -omega.

"Bats have dialed down the immune system's alarm by shedding genes that produce interferon-alpha," Scheben said. "This could explain their high viral tolerance." It protects healthy tissue from hyperactive immune reactions, which is one of the reasons infections are so dangerous to people."

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Bat Genomes: Intricate Link Between Cancer Resistance and Immunity

They also discovered that bat genomes have more alterations in cancer-related genes than other mammals, including six that repair DNA and 46 that suppress cancers.

"Our work highlights how immunity and cancer response are deeply interconnected," Scheben said. "The same immune genes and proteins play important roles in cancer resistance."

Reference:

1. Long-Read Sequencing Reveals Rapid Evolution of Immunity- and Cancer-Related Genes in Bats - (https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/15/9/evad148/7259420)

Source-Medindia