The evolution of antimicrobial peptides in Chiroptera

High viral tolerance coupled with an extraordinary regulation of the immune response makes bats a great model to study host-pathogen evolution. Although many immune-related gene gains and losses have been previously reported in bats, important families such as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) remain understudied. We built exhaustive bioinformatic pipeline targeting major defensins cathelicidins explore AMP diversity analyze their evolution distribution across six bat families. A combination manual automated procedures identified 29 queried species, α-, β-defensins, representing around 10% diversity. Gene duplications were inferred both α-defensins, which absent five three β-defensin subfamilies, but did not show significant shifts family size Anoura caudifer pteropodids. Based on lineage-specific losses, we propose diet diet-related microbiome may determine α- β-defensins subfamilies. These results highlight importance building species-specific libraries for genome annotation non-model organisms shed light possible drivers responsible rapid AMPs. By focusing these understudied defenses, provide robust framework explaining responses pathogens.