Bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-like coronaviruses.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) emerged in 2002 to 2003 in southern China. The origin of its etiological agent, the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), remains elusive. Here we report that species of bats are a natural host of coronaviruses closely related to those responsible for the SARS outbreak. These viruses, termed SARS-like coronaviruses (SL-CoVs), display greater genetic variation than SARS-CoV isolated from humans or from civets. The human and civet isolates of SARS-CoV nestle phylogenetically within the spectrum of SL-CoVs, indicating that the virus responsible for the SARS outbreak was a member of this coronavirus group.
Li
Wendong
W
Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China.
Shi
Zhengli
Z
Yu
Meng
M
Ren
Wuze
W
Smith
Craig
C
Epstein
Jonathan H
JH
Wang
Hanzhong
H
Crameri
Gary
G
Hu
Zhihong
Z
Zhang
Huajun
H
Zhang
Jianhong
J
McEachern
Jennifer
J
Field
Hume
H
Daszak
Peter
P
Eaton
Bryan T
BT
Zhang
Shuyi
S
Wang
Lin-Fa
LF
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000821:virology*; D002522:Chlorocebus aethiops; D021821:Communicable Diseases, Emerging; D017934:Coronavirus / Q000145:classification; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D004197:Disease Reservoirs; D014644:Genetic Variation; D016679:Genome, Viral; D045403:Henipavirus / Q000145:classification; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D045473:Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus / Q000145:classification; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D045169:Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission / Q000821:virology; D014709:Vero Cells; D045949:Viverridae / Q000821:virology