2025/02/19 by Wei Lun Ng, Lin‐Fa Wang · 1 voice · 1 citation
Medicine · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Viral Infections and Vectors #Bat Biology and Ecology Studies #Viral Infections and Outbreaks Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1242/dmm.050763
openalex publication_date 2025/02/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Bats are a natural reservoir for a wide variety of notorious viruses that are deadly to humans and other mammals but cause no or minimal clinical damage in bats. The co-evolution of bats and viruses for more than sixty million years has established unique and balanced immune defenses within bats against a number of viruses. With the COVID-19 pandemic, bats have gained greater attention as a likely reservoir of the SARS-CoV-2 ancestor virus. The coupling of omics technology and bat research opens an exciting new field to understand and translate discoveries from bats to humans, in the context of infectious disease and beyond. Here, we focus on the mechanism of immunity balance in bats, the application of omics and how this might lead to improvement of human health.