Scientists traced the evolutionary lineage of viruses connected to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to verify initial indications that it originated from bats in China.
An examination published in Nature Microbiology on studies by a foreign team of European, American and Chinese scientists has found that the lineage that gave birth to SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) has been circulating in bats for decades.
Using genetic studies to hint at the origins of the virus, the study found that SARS-CoV-2 had evolved from other bat viruses for more than 40 to 70 years. The COVID-19 virus is genetically 96% of the RaTG13 coronavirus discovered in a Rhinolophus affinis horseshoe bat in 2013 in Yunnan, China. He separated from RaTG13 in 1969.
The study shows that the lineage explained by SARS-CoV-2 has not been detected in bats for decades. ARS-CoV-2 stores a trait with older members of its receptor binding domain (RBD)-related lineage in its complex protein that allows it to join human receptor cells, indicating that other pathogenic viruses are likely to be able to cross paths with humans.
“This is that other viruses capable of infecting humans are circulating in horseshoe bats in China,” said Dr. David Robertson, Professor of Computational Virology, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research.
The study contradicts previous studies indicating that pangolins are the source of the virus. The RBD series of SARS-CoV-2 has been discovered in only a few pangolin viruses.
”Altogether, our analyses imply that bats are the number one reservoir of the SARS-CoV-2 ” lineage, according to the study. In humans, existing evidence is consistent with the fact that the virus has evolved into bats, resulting in bat weed covirus. which can be reflected in the upper airways of humans and pangolins. “
The study states that pangolins are only an intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2 that facilitated the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans. He argues that other teams of researchers would recommend that evolutionary adjustments to pangolins have allowed SARS transmission. -CoV-2 for humans.
The test indicates that there is no evidence to recommend that pangolin infection “be a condition for bat viruses to spread in humans. Instead, our studies recommend that SARS-CoV-2 probably evolved in the ability to reflect in humans’ upper airways. and pangolins. “
The other key feature essential for SARS-CoV-2’s ability to infect humans, an insertion of the polybastic excision site into the Spike protein, has not yet been observed in some other close relative of the SARS-CoV-2 bat.
Scientists have discovered superimmunity to bats, giving them the ability to wear coronavirus without being killed during the Photo: Jochemy – Pixabay procedure