Recommendable! Good news! Bats (the only flying mammal) are not just hosts of a plethora of viruses, some of them pathogenic! We can still learn so much from them.
"... bats’ ability to survive as so-called viral reservoirs may stem in part from unique mutations, including the duplication of the gene encoding an antiviral protein called protein kinase R (PKR). That second copy stems from an ongoing evolutionary “arms race,” according to the study, resulting in bats’ adaptation to and seeming immunity from a wide range of viruses over the course of their evolutionary history. ..."
From the abstract:
"Several bat species act as asymptomatic reservoirs for many viruses that are highly pathogenic in other mammals. Here, we have characterized the functional diversification of the protein kinase R (PKR), a major antiviral innate defense system. Our data indicate that PKR has evolved under positive selection and has undergone repeated genomic duplications in bats in contrast to all studied mammals that have a single copy of the gene. Functional testing of the relationship between PKR and poxvirus antagonists revealed how an evolutionary conflict with ancient pathogenic poxviruses has shaped a specific bat host-virus interface. We determined that duplicated PKRs of the Myotis species have undergone genetic diversification, allowing them to collectively escape from and enhance the control of DNA and RNA viruses. These findings suggest that viral-driven adaptations in PKR contribute to modern virus-bat interactions and may account for bat-specific immunity."
Adaptive duplication and genetic diversification of protein kinase R contribute to the specificity of bat-virus interactions (open access)
Fig. 3. Evolutionary-guided functional approach reveals adaptive within-protein epistasis in bat PKR and a unique C-terminal extension in the bat poxvirus K3.
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