Wild animal surveillance for coronavirus HKU1 and potential variants of other coronaviruses.
1. Although CoV-HKU1 was not identified in any of the studied animals, a coronavirus closely related to SARS-CoV (bat-SARS-CoV) was identified in 23 (19%) of 118 wild Chinese horseshoe bats by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). 2. Complete genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis showed that bat-SARS-CoV formed a distinct cluster with SARS-CoV as group 2b coronaviruses, distantly related to known group 2 coronaviruses. 3. Most differences between the bat-SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV genomes were observed in the spike gene. The presence of a29-bp insertion in ORF 8 of bat-SARS-CoV genome, not in most human SARS-CoV genomes, suggests that it has a common ancestor with civet SARS-CoV. 4. Antibody against recombinant bat-SARS-CoV nucleocapsid protein was detected in 84% of Chinese horseshoe bats using an enzyme immunoassay.Neutralising antibody to human SARS-CoV was also detected in those with lower viral loads.5. This study also revealed a previously unknown diversity of coronaviruses in bats, which are important natural reservoir for coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-like viruses.
Department of Microbiology, The University of Hong Kong. Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong SAR, China. hkumicro@hkucc.hku.hk
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D000818:Animals; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000821:virology*; D017934:Coronavirus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004197:Disease Reservoirs; D015751:Genes, pol; D016679:Genome, Viral; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D008253:Macaca mulatta / Q000821:virology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012377:Rodentia / Q000821:virology*; D045473:Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA