16 March 2012 A distinct lineage of influenza A virus in bats On
January 17 2012, the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences published a paper by Tong et al. which described the
identification of a new influenza A virus haemagglutinin (HA)
type (H17) in yellow-shouldered bats captured in two locations
in Guatemala. In addition, all seven other genes were
genetically distant from known influenza A viruses. Three of the
316 bats captured over a two year period were positive for the
virus, identified through the use of consensus-degenerate RT-
PCR/PCR primers. The HA of the bat virus was estimated to have
diverged at roughly the same time as the other 16 known subtypes
of HA. The bat virus had 45% amino acid sequence similarity to
HAs from all 16 other Influenza A subtypes, similar to the
relationship held among each of these subtypes. Gene analysis
showed that the bat virus was significantly divergent from known
influenza A, B and C viruses, however, it was more closely
related to group 1 HAs and so was