Sample collection
A total of 243 fresh fecal samples were collected between October 2015
and September 2017 from the rats with unknown health status captured
close to human residences in three different regions in China, including
Xiamen city in Fujian province, Yiyang city in Hunan province and Malipo
county in Yunnan province. Individual fresh stool samples were
immediately placed in RNase-free tubes with 700μl phosphate-buffered
saline (PBS) (0.3% homogenate) and stored at -80℃ until further use.
These stool specimens have also been examined for rat bocavirus (Xiong,
Zhou, et al., 2018), porcine bocaviruses (Xiong et al., 2019) and torque
teno virus (Xiong, Mo, et al., 2018).