Prevalence and Phylogeny of Coronaviruses in Wild Birds from the Bering Strait Area (Beringia) Shaman Muradrasoli1,2*, A´ da´m Ba´lint3, John Wahlgren4,5, Jonas Waldenstro¨ m5, Sa´ndor Bela´k3, Jonas Blomberg1, Bjo¨ rn Olsen6,7 1 Section of Clinical Virology, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, 2 Section for Bacteriology and Food Safety, Department of Biomedical Sciences and Veterinary Public Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden, 3 The Joint Research and Development Division, Departments of Virology and Parasitology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the National Veterinary Institute, Uppsala, Sweden, 4 Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, 5 Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, Solna, Sweden, 6 Section for Zoonotic Ecology and Epidemiology, Linneaus University, Kalmar, Sweden, 7 Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden Abstract Coronaviruses (CoVs) can cause mild to severe disease in humans and animals, their host range and environmental spread seem to have been largely underestimated, and they are currently being investigated for their potential medical relevance. Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) belongs to gamma-coronaviruses and causes a costly respiratory viral disease in chickens. The role of wild birds in the epidemiology of IBV is poorly understood. In the present study, we examined 1,002 cloacal and faecal samples collected from 26 wild bird species in the Beringia area for the presence of CoVs, and then we performed statistical and phylogenetic analyses. We detected diverse CoVs by RT-PCR in wild birds in the Beringia area. Sequence analysis showed that the detected viruses are gamma-coronaviruses related to IBV. These findings suggest that wild birds are able to carry gamma-coronaviruses asymptomatically. We concluded that CoVs are widespread among wild birds in Beringia, and their geographic spread and frequency is higher than previously realised. Thus, Avian CoV can be efficiently disseminated over large distances and could be a genetic reservoir for future emerging pathogenic CoVs. Considering the great animal health and economic impact of IBV as well as the recent emergence of novel coronaviruses such as SARS- coronavirus, it is important to investigate the role of wildlife reservoirs in CoV infection biology and epidemiology. Citation: Muradrasoli S, Ba´lint A´ , Wahlgren J, Waldenstro¨m J, Bela´k S, et al. (2010) Prevalence and Phylogeny of Coronaviruses in Wild Birds from the Bering Strait Area (Beringia). PLoS ONE 5(10): e13640. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013640 Editor: Ding Xiang Liu, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Received April 20, 2010; Accepted October 3, 2010; Published October 29, 2010 Copyright: � 2010 Muradrasoli et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was financially supported by the Swedish Research Council VR (2004-5489, 2008-6892) (http://www.vr.se), and the Research Council FORMAS (2005-51) (http://www.formas.se/). This work was also supported by the Award of Excellence of the Swedish University of Agriculture (2007) granted to Prof. Sa´ndor Bela´k. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: