Coronavirus relatives may pose a threat to humans: a study

The coronavirus circulating in the world may have undisclosed relatives, suggesting that the current pandemic is not the last to threaten humans.

New arrival the study Nature Microbiology was published in a journal on Tuesday and discovered the current strain known in the scientific literature as SARS-CoV-2. It is genetically diverged from other known viruses that circulate bats 40 to 70 years ago.

Since coronaviruses frequently recombine and evolve into new species, it is almost certain that other strains have evolved in the Chinese bat population in the intervening years. This means that other viruses that are more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than their closest known relatives at present may pose the potential for future outbreaks.

“From this ancestor of the 1960s and 1970s, it is likely that there are other offspring, and other lineages that have been quietly present and circulating in bats for the last 40, 50, or 60 years.” And Center for Center biologist Maciej Boni co-author of infectious disease dynamics and research in Pennsylvania. “This probably means that another coronavirus pandemic will occur. No one knows if it will happen in 2025 or 2075.”

The study found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus could also infect pangolin, a mammal native to China, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, but was most likely to infect humans directly from bats.

“There is no evidence that Pangolins promote adaptation to humans,” the researchers write.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is a Salbecovirus, a subgenus of the Coronavirus family, which also includes SARS. SARS is a virus that causes severe respiratory illness in humans. The virus most closely associated with SARS-CoV-2, known as RaTG13, was identified in 2013 in the horseshoe bat in Yunnan, China.

Research shows that the two viruses are about 96% similar. Evolutionally speaking, the 4% gap is a genetic rift. The difference between humans and orangutans is not as great as the difference between the two viruses.

The danger to humans of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (and its undiscovered relatives) is that its spike proteins bind to ACE-2 receptors present on cells of the lower respiratory tract. These cells infect and spread the virus, causing the COVID-19 disease that has killed more than 140,000 people in the United States so far.

Researchers are unlikely to definitively identify the index case, the first person to be infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus by bats sometime in November 2019. However, further research on bat populations around the world has shown some of the current virus’s close relatives, Boni said.

“We never find the first case, but probably with better sampling, probably circulating in bats in 2010 or 2015, but bats that were very similar to the current SARS-2 virus. You will find a lineage.” “The more sampling you do, the more likely you are to find a newer bat virus.”

The researchers sought an international surveillance network for both bat populations around the world and humans who could be infected with the new virus. Past studies have been limited to a few scientists studying a small number of bat populations, Surveillance Boni completely captures the true number of potentially harmful pathogens that could spill into humans. Said that it is not enough.

“Of course, starting sampling tens of thousands of bats and characterizing all the viruses is a huge challenge,” Boni said. “When you’re trying to catch something emerging from a population of animals to a population of humans, you need watch on both sides.”

“It needs to be coordinated internationally. It can’t be a gradual effort,” he said.