A Novel Bat Coronavirus Closely Related to SARS-CoV-2 Contains Natural Insertions at the S1/S2 Cleavage Site of the Spike Protein

• Published in: Current biology Vol. 30; no. 11; pp. 2196 - 2203.e3
• Main Authors: Zhou, Hong, Chen, Xing, Hu, Tao, Li, Juan, Song, Hao, Liu, Yanran, Wang, Peihan, Liu, Di, Yang, Jing, Holmes, Edward C., Hughes, Alice C., Bi, Yuhai, Shi, Weifeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Inc 08.06.2020
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; bat coronavirus; Betacoronavirus - chemistry; Betacoronavirus - genetics; Betacoronavirus - isolation & purification; Chiroptera - virology; COVID-19; Eutheria - virology; Feces - virology; Genome, Viral; Models, Molecular; Mutagenesis, Insertional; Phylogeny; RNA, Viral - genetics; S1/S2 cleavage site; SARS Virus - genetics; SARS-CoV-2; Sequence Alignment; Sequence Analysis, RNA; Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus - chemistry; Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus - genetics; spike protein; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; bat coronavirus; S1/S2 cleavage site; spike protein

The unprecedented pandemic of pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, in China and beyond has had major public health impacts on a global scale [1, 2]. Although bats are regarded as the most likely natural hosts for SARS-CoV-2 [3], the origins of the virus remain unclear. Here, we repor...