Bat-to-Man

From Ebola to SARS coronavirus, bats famously carry viruses that are devastating to humans, but hardly affect the bats themselves. Their protection stems from extraordinary features of their immune system, with some species (like the black flying fox, pictured), benefiting from a constantly activated defence mechanism, the interferon signalling pathway, without experiencing the adverse consequences of inflammation. Bat defences also shape the characteristics of the viruses they carry: recent experiments suggest that viruses infecting bat cells spread very rapidly between cells, and such high transmission rates could cause problems for less resistant hosts. Though often cited as especially important sources of zoonoses [diseases transmitted from animals to humans], other studies suggest that bats are not inherently more likely to harbour zoonotic viruses – the many diseases associated with them might simply reflect the sheer number of bat species. Yet their unique immunity could have implications for the behaviour of any bat viruses that do jump into humans.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

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• Image by Lin-Fa Wang, Emerging Infectious Diseases Program, Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School, Singapore, Singapore
• Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, February 2020