Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 113, Issue 10, Pages 2696-2701Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1518240113
Keywords
interferon; innate immunity; bat immunology
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health Institutional Development Award Programme of the National Centre for Research Resources [P20RR018754]
- Australian Research Council Future Fellowship [FT110100234]
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Chief Executive Officer Science Leaders Award
- Singaporean National Research Foundation Competitive Research Programme [NRF-CRP10-2012-05]
- National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy
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Bats harbor many emerging and reemerging viruses, several of which are highly pathogenic in other mammals but cause no clinical signs of disease in bats. To determine the role of interferons (IFNs) in the ability of bats to coexist with viruses, we sequenced the type I IFN locus of the Australian black flying fox, Pteropus alecto, providing what is, to our knowledge, the first gene map of the IFN region of any bat species. Our results reveal a highly contracted type I IFN family consisting of only 10 IFNs, including three functional IFN-alpha loci. Furthermore, the three IFN-alpha genes are constitutively expressed in unstimulated bat tissues and cells and their expression is unaffected by viral infection. Constitutively expressed IFN-alpha results in the induction of a subset of IFN-stimulated genes associated with antiviral activity and resistance to DNA damage, providing evidence for a unique IFN system that may be linked to the ability of bats to coexist with viruses.
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