Nat Microbiol: developing novel coronavirus screening methods

February 26, 2020 / Bio Valley bio on / -- in the past 20 years, some coronaviruses have crossed the species barrier into human beings, leading to the outbreak of serious, often fatal respiratory diseases Since the first discovery of SARS CoV in the animal market, the global virology project has found thousands of coronavirus sequences in different animals and geographical regions Unfortunately, there are few tools for functional testing of these viruses' ability to infect humans, which seriously hampers efforts to predict the next outbreaks of zoonotic viruses Photo source: Recently, researchers from the National Institutes of health of the United States published the latest research results in the Journal of nature microbiology, reporting a new method of sand screening virus, which is entitled "functional assessment of cell entry and receptor usage for sars-cov-2 and other lineage B betacoronaviruses" In this study, researchers developed a method to quickly screen B-type coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV and recently sars-cov-2, to understand the use of receptors and their ability to infect cell types of different species The researchers found that in the process of virus entering the host, the host protease is an important barrier for several B-type coronaviruses By bypassing this barrier, B-type coronaviruses can enter human cells through an unknown receptor The researchers also showed how different b-viruses could be recombined into human cells, and further confirmed that human ACE2 was the receptor of sars-cov-2 In general, this study emphasizes the necessity of continuous detection of coronavirus at different levels (protein sequence and function), so that we can better prepare for the next possible outbreak of coronavirus Reference: Michael letko et al Functional assessment of cell entry and receiver usage for sars-cov-2 and other lineage B betacoronaviruses Nature microbiology 2020 Doihttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-020-0688-y