Studies have revealed similarities between the new coronavirus and the SARS virus

Zhengli, a researcher at the Wuhan Virus Institute, and colleagues identified and symptomted 2019-nCov, which causes respiratory diseases, revealing similarities with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus. The paper was published online February 3 in the journal Nature. The article found evidence that the new coronavirus originated from bats, but the animal origin of the outbreak has yet to be confirmed.
coronavirus has been a source of epidemics of human infectious diseases, such as SARS and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), both caused by coronavirus. SARS-related coronavirus is found mainly in mammals such as bats and poses a potential threat to public health. The outbreak is reported to have originated at a seafood market in Wuhan from 2019. Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath and pneumonia. The outbreak has since spread to other parts of China and overseas. At the time of writing, more than 17,000 cases had been detected and more than 300 deaths had been reported.
Shi Zhengli and colleagues analyzed samples of seven cases of severe pneumonia, six of them workers at Wuhan Seafood Market, which first detected cases in December 2019. The researchers found that the full-length genome sequences obtained in five of the patients were almost exactly the same as each other (more than 99.9 percent similar), and 79.5 percent of the SARS coronavirus sequences. In addition, the researchers found that the virus sequence was as similar as 96 percent to a bat coronavirus at the genome-wide level, suggesting that bats may have been the source of the coronavirus.
researchers found that seven identified and sequenced non-structural proteins were also present in the SARS coronavirus, suggesting that the virus is a SARS-related coronavirus, which the authors temporarily named the new coronavirus (or 2019-nCoV). They confirmed that the path of 2019-nCoV into cells is the same as that of SARS coronavirus, i.e. through ACE2 cells. Antibodies from patients infected with 2019-nCoV show the potential to moderate the virus at low serum dilution, but whether anti-SARS antibodies can cross-react with 2019-CoV still needs to be confirmed with the serum of patients recovering from SARS virus infection.
authors developed a test that could distinguish 2019-nCoV from all other human coronavirus and showed that 2019-nCoV was detected in the initial oral swab sample, but then (about ten days later) the samples did not show positive virus results. The findings suggest that the most likely route of transmission of the virus is through an individual's respiratory tract, although the authors note that other routes are also possible and that more patient data are needed to further study the route of transmission.
, the results were published on January 23 in BioRxiv, a bioprinted text library. (Source: Science Network Feng Lifei)
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