In recent years, many viruses that are associated with human infectious diseases have been detected in healthy bats, including the Rabies virus, Ebola virus (EBoV), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Unlike other mammals, bats do not appear to show overt clinical signs of infection. Therefore, people can learn new knowledge to fight against the viruses by studying the immune system in bats. Here we review recent studies on innate immune system in bats, and highlight the unique charateristics of their innate immunity. Among all mammalian groups, bats are the only group capable of flight, which may have led to a suite of unique antiviral response mechanisms in bats. Meanwhile, bats have evolved novel mechanisms to limit virus-induced inflammatory responses. Notably, bats have a rich species diversity with more than 1400 species across the globe, which accounts for more than 20% of all mammal species. We call for in-depth studies on the diversity of immune genes in bats, which would facilitate a deep understanding of the unique immune functions in bats. Together, learning from bats about their immune systems would be fundamentally important for humans to control infectious diseases and develop animal husbandry.

近年来，健康的蝙蝠体内检测到了很多与人类传染病相关的病毒，包括狂犬病病毒（Rabies virus）、埃博拉病毒（Ebola virus）、严重急性呼吸综合征病毒（SARS-CoV）以及最近新出现的新型冠状病毒（SARS-CoV-2）等。与其他哺乳动物不同的是，蝙蝠在感染了这些病毒后不会表现出明显的临床症状。因此，人类可以通过研究蝙蝠的免疫系统获得抗病毒免疫的新知识。本文综述了蝙蝠抗病毒天然免疫研究的最新进展，指出了蝙蝠在天然免疫方面的特殊性：蝙蝠独有的飞行能力可能导致其演化出一套独特的抗病毒免疫响应机制，同时具有一套独特的机制限制炎症反应。蝙蝠物种的多样性丰富（>1400种），超过了哺乳动物的五分之一。因此对蝙蝠免疫基因的多样性研究，将促进对蝙蝠特殊免疫机制的理解，对人类传染病防治和畜牧业发展具有重要意义。