1. Military Veterinary Institute, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Changchun 130122, China
2. Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Chengdu Military Region, Kunming 650118, China
3. Yunnan Institute of Endemic Diseases Control and Prevention, Dali 671000, China
4. School of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China
5. Jiangsu Co-innovation Center for Prevention and Control of Important Animal Infectious Diseases and Zoonoses, Yangzhou 225009, China
Bats have been implicated as important reservoir hosts of alpha- and betacoronaviruses. In this
study, diverse coronaviruses (CoVs) were detected in 50 of 951 (positive rate 5.3%) intestinal
specimens of eight bat species collected in four provinces and the Tibet Autonomous Region of
China by pan-coronavirus RT-PCR screening. Based on 400-nt RNA-dependent RNA polymerase
(RdRP) sequence analysis, eight belonged to genus Alphacoronavirus and 42 to Betacoronavirus.
Among the 50 positive specimens, thirteen gave rise to CoV full-length RdRP gene amplification for
further sequence comparison, of which three divergent sequences (two from a unreported
province) were subjected to full genome sequencing. Two complete genomes of betacoronaviruses
(JTMC15 and JPDB144) and one nearly-complete genome of alphacoronavirus (JTAC2) were
sequenced and their genomic organization predicted. The present study has identified additional
numbers of genetically diverse bat-borne coronaviruses with a wide distribution in China. Two new
species of bat CoV, identified through sequence comparison and phylogenetic analysis, are proposed.