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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Virol.
Sec. Emerging and Reemerging Viruses
Volume 4 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fviro.2024.1392583
This article is part of the Research Topic Emerging and re-emerging viral zoonoses View all articles

Temperature as Potential Key Regulator for Ebola virus Replication in Primary Cells from Mops condylurus

Provisionally accepted
Marcel Bokelmann Marcel Bokelmann 1,2*Angelika Lander Angelika Lander 1Annette Wahlbrink Annette Wahlbrink 1Martin H. Groschup Martin H. Groschup 2Anne Balkema-Buschmann Anne Balkema-Buschmann 2Emmanuel Couacy-Hymann Emmanuel Couacy-Hymann 3Joseph Prescott Joseph Prescott 1Andreas Kurth Andreas Kurth 1*
  • 1 Center for Biological Hazards and Special Pathogens, Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Berlin, Germany
  • 2 Institute for New and Novel Animal Infectious Agents, Friedrich Loeffler Institut, Greifswald – Insel Riems, Germany
  • 3 Laboratoire National d'Appui au Développement Agricole, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    For more than 40 years, outbreaks of ebolavirus disease have been documented, but the natural reservoir(s) of ebolaviruses remain unknown. However, recent studies provide evidence that the Angolan free-tailed bat (Mops condylurus), an insectivorous bat belonging to the family Molossidae, is a likely ebolavirus reservoir.Being a heterothermic species, M. condylurus bats are highly tolerant to variations in ambient temperatures, and therefore are capable of living under a broad range of climatic and environmental conditions by using adaptive thermoregulation. Body core temperatures as low as 12.0°C have been measured during winter, while increased body temperatures were observed in their hot roost or during flight, reaching temperatures typical for fever in most other mammalian species.Here we investigated the impacts of temperature fluctuations between 27°C and 42°C on Ebola virus (EBOV) survival and replication kinetics in cells from M. condylurus using qRT-PCR.We found that primary cells derived from M. condylurus, similar to the bats in their natural environment, were highly tolerant to temperature variations. EBOV replication was temperature-dependent, showing a strong reduction of replication efficiency at low temperature. We therefore conclude, that heterothermy might be involved in balancing the level of EBOV replication and thereby be a potential key factor for tolerating EBOV infections in vivo.

    Keywords: Ebola virus, Reservoir host, BAT, temperature, Virus Replication, tolerance

    Received: 27 Feb 2024; Accepted: 22 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Bokelmann, Lander, Wahlbrink, Groschup, Balkema-Buschmann, Couacy-Hymann, Prescott and Kurth. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Marcel Bokelmann, Center for Biological Hazards and Special Pathogens, Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Berlin, Germany
    Andreas Kurth, Center for Biological Hazards and Special Pathogens, Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Berlin, Germany

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