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The central development
They studied the antibodies, which are protective Y-shaped proteins made of two heavy protein chains and two light protein chains. Unlike all other mammals, including humans, vesper bats have two separate heavy-chain gene systems, boosting their antibody diversity, they discovered. Frank In an older study, also published in Scientific Reports, researchers found that bats and coronaviruses have been evolving together for millions of years: this has produced different strains in different groups of bats around the world, it added.
For the study, the scientists looked at vesper bats, of which there are 500 species across the globe, except Antarctica. To unravel the evolutionary origins of this duplication, the scientists studied genomes of 34 species of bats, including 26 closely related bats and found that the copy is present in every vespertilionid examined except the pallid bat, Antrozous pallidus. Scientists studied various coronaviruses in 36 bat species from the western Indian Ocean and nearby areas of Africa and found that different groups of bats had their own unique strains of coronavirus. India is home to 135 species of bats, forming the largest order of mammals in the country, according to State of India’s Bats 2024-2025 published by the Bat Conservation International and Nature Conservation Foundation.
“We’ve never seen anything like this in a mammal before,” said Hannah Frank, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Tulane University author of the study, in a release. This completely changes our understanding of mammalian immune systems “and raises exciting new questions about why bats have been so evolutionarily successful and how they respond to viruses,” he added. How bats remain reservoirs of viruses without being infected by them could assist scientists understand immune responses among different species and help prevent disease spillover, said the paper. “It doesn’t fully explain why bats are such effective viral reservoirs, but it reveals a level of immune variety we didn’t know existed and gives us an entirely new direction to explore,” said Dr. Despite the critical role they play in ecosystems, by dispersing seeds, pollinating plants and preying on pest insects, “bats receive an insignificant amount of attention from the country’s research and conservation communities and scant recognition in government policies and programs,” this document said.
