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| Bats, like this big eared townsend bat, have unusually robust immune systems. CREDIT: Public domain |
For centuries, bats have been vilified as little more than
disease-carrying, blood-sucking creatures of the night. Researchers in
Australia, however, have found that bats may someday help people unlock the
secrets of immunity and longevity. The Bat Pack is a group of Aussie scientists
who have spent years collaborating with a global network of bat experts to
unravel the genome of two species: the black flying fox, an Australian bat, and
the David's myotis, which is native to China.
Their research has revealed that the evolution of bat
flight may have led to the mammals developing immune systems that are uncannily
robust, says the Geelong Advertiser. "Flying is a very energetic activity
that produces toxic byproducts, and so when bats learned to fly, by necessity
they also had to learn to deal with those toxins, and we are proposing that
this had a whole spillover effect," researcher Dr Chris Cowled told the
Geelong Advertiser. "The vast majority of new diseases in humans, around
three-quarters of them, have an origin in animals, and, of these, bat diseases
are the most deadly of all," Cowled said. "However, bats don't show
signs of disease, which means they must have something special going on with
their immune systems."
After the bat genomes were sequenced, the Bat Pack began
the task of comparing their genetic makeup to those of other mammals (including
humans) to see where the similarities and differences lay. It's possible,
according to Dr Cowled, that further investigations into the immune systems of
bats could one day allow scientists to prevent cancer as well as outbreaks of
viruses common to bats, including the Ebola and SARS viruses, reports the
Geelong Advertiser.
But bats are not immune to all diseases, of course: A
deadly condition known as white-nose syndrome, caused by a fungus, has killed
off millions of North American bats from at least seven different species.
Though there's no known cure, some bat populations have started to rebound,
signaling that the animals may have started to develop an immunity to the
disease.
Source: Live Science
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