Biodiversity loss and COVID-19 pandemic: The role of bats in the origin and the spreading of the disease.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun
; 538: 2-13, 2021 01 29.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1152269
ABSTRACT
The loss of biodiversity in the ecosystems has created the general conditions that have favored and, in fact, made possible, the insurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of factors have contributed to it deforestation, changes in forest habitats, poorly regulated agricultural surfaces, mismanaged urban growth. They have altered the composition of wildlife communities, greatly increased the contacts of humans with wildlife, and altered niches that harbor pathogens, increasing their chances to come in contact with humans. Among the wildlife, bats have adapted easily to anthropized environments such as houses, barns, cultivated fields, orchards, where they found the suitable ecosystem to prosper. Bats are major hosts for αCoV and ßCoV evolution has shaped their peculiar physiology and their immune system in a way that makes them resistant to viral pathogens that would instead successfully attack other species, including humans. In time, the coronaviruses that bats host as reservoirs have undergone recombination and other modifications that have increased their ability for inter-species transmission one modification of particular importance has been the development of the ability to use ACE2 as a receptor in host cells. This particular development in CoVs has been responsible for the serious outbreaks in the last two decades, and for the present COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Disease Reservoirs
/
Zoonoses
/
Chiroptera
/
Biodiversity
/
Pandemics
/
SARS-CoV-2
/
COVID-19
Limits:
Animals
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Biochem Biophys Res Commun
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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