Little is known about the relationship of Gammaherpesviruses with their bat hosts. Gammaherpesviruses are of interest because of their long–term infection of lymphoid cells and their potential to cause cancer. Here, we report the characterization of a novel bat herpesvirus isolated from a big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus) in Canada. The genome of the virus, tentatively named Eptesicus fuscus herpesvirus (EfHV), is 166,748 base pairs. Phylogenetically EfHV is a member of Gammaherpesvirinae, in which it belongs to the Genus Rhadinovirus and is closely related to other bat Gammaherpesviruses. In contrast to other known Gammaherpesviruses, the EfHV genome contains coding sequences similar to those of class I and II host major histocompatibility antigens. The virus is capable of infecting and replicating in human, monkey, cat and pig cell lines. Although we detected EfHV in 20 of 28 big brown bats tested, these bats lacked neutralizing antibodies against the virus.

伽玛疱疹病毒与蝙蝠宿主之间的关系知之甚少。伽马疱疹病毒引起人们的兴趣是因为它们长期感染淋巴样细胞并具有致癌的潜力。在这里，我们报告了一种从加拿大的大棕蝙蝠（Eptesicus fuscus）分离出的新型蝙蝠疱疹病毒的特征。该病毒的基因组，暂定名为大棕鲇疱疹病毒（Ef中HV），为166748个碱基对。在系统发育上，Ef HV是伽马疱疹病毒的成员，属于狂犬病病毒属，与其他蝙蝠伽马疱疹病毒密切相关。与其他已知的伽玛疱疹病毒相反，EfHV基因组包含的编码序列与I类和II类宿主的主要组织相容性抗原相似。该病毒能够在人，猴，猫和猪细胞系中感染和复制。尽管我们在测试的28只棕色大蝙蝠中有20只检测到Ef HV，但这些蝙蝠缺乏针对病毒的中和抗体。