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Three new coronaviruses have been found that match more than 95% of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, in bats living in Laos. Among the known coronaviruses, it is the closest to the COVID-19 virus. It is a discovery that may give strength to the theory of natural origin of COVID-19.
According to Nature.com, an online news site in the scientific journal Nature, on the 24th (local time), a team led by Dr. Marc Erwa, head of the pathogen detection laboratory at the Pasteur Institute in France, collected and analyzed saliva and feces samples from 645 bats in a cave in northern Laos. .
Looking at the results of the analysis, we found a coronavirus that matches SARS-CoV-2 more than 95% in three species of Rhinolophus.
Corona 19 virus infects humans by attaching to a receptor called ACE2 on the surface of human cells, and it was found that the newly discovered virus also has almost the same receptor binding region.
Currently, this paper has been published on ‘Research Square’, a collection of papers before official publication. Peer evaluation has not yet been done.
Edward Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney, Australia, said: “When we first analyzed the coronavirus, the receptor-binding region was something we had never seen before. It has been confirmed that such a binding region exists in nature.”
The research team analyzed that among the newly discovered viruses, BANAL-52 was 96.8% identical to SARS-CoV-2.
A close relative of the Corona 19 virus, ‘RaTG13’, found in bats in Yunnan Province, southwestern China last year, was 96.1% identical, and it was estimated that they had a common ancestor about 40 to 70 years ago.
Although the results of this study have provided an opportunity to confirm more about the origin of the COVID-19 virus, it is pointed out that there are still missing parts.
For example, the newly discovered virus does not have a ‘furin-cleavage site’ in the spike protein that helps SARS-CoV-2 or other coronaviruses penetrate human cells, and in Wuhan, central China, where the coronavirus was first identified. This is because it is not clear whether there is an intermediate host or the process of transfer to
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