Tang X C, Zhang J X, Zhang S Y, Wang P, Fan X H, Li L F, Li G, Dong B Q, Liu W, Cheung C L, Xu K M, Song W J, Vijaykrishna D, Poon L L M, Peiris J S M, Smith G J D, Chen H, Guan Y
State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Department of Microbiology, The University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Medicine Building, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China.
J Virol. 2006 Aug;80(15):7481-90. doi: 10.1128/JVI.00697-06.
Coronaviruses can infect a variety of animals including poultry, livestock, and humans and are currently classified into three groups. The interspecies transmissions of coronaviruses between different hosts form a complex ecosystem of which little is known. The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the recent identification of new coronaviruses have highlighted the necessity for further investigation of coronavirus ecology, in particular the role of bats and other wild animals. In this study, we sampled bat populations in 15 provinces of China and reveal that approximately 6.5% of the bats, from diverse species distributed throughout the region, harbor coronaviruses. Full genomes of four coronavirues from bats were sequenced and analyzed. Phylogenetic analyses of the spike, envelope, membrane, and nucleoprotein structural proteins and the two conserved replicase domains, putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and RNA helicase, revealed that bat coronaviruses cluster in three different groups: group 1, another group that includes all SARS and SARS-like coronaviruses (putative group 4), and an independent bat coronavirus group (putative group 5). Further genetic analyses showed that different species of bats maintain coronaviruses from different groups and that a single bat species from different geographic locations supports similar coronaviruses. Thus, the findings of this study suggest that bats may play an integral role in the ecology and evolution of coronaviruses.
冠状病毒可感染包括家禽、家畜和人类在内的多种动物，目前分为三组。冠状病毒在不同宿主之间的跨物种传播形成了一个复杂的生态系统，对此人们知之甚少。严重急性呼吸综合征（SARS）的爆发以及最近新型冠状病毒的发现凸显了进一步研究冠状病毒生态学的必要性，特别是蝙蝠和其他野生动物所起的作用。在本研究中，我们对中国15个省份的蝙蝠种群进行了采样，发现该地区分布的不同种类蝙蝠中约6.5%携带冠状病毒。对来自蝙蝠的四种冠状病毒的全基因组进行了测序和分析。对刺突蛋白、包膜蛋白、膜蛋白和核蛋白结构蛋白以及两个保守的复制酶结构域（假定的RNA依赖性RNA聚合酶和RNA解旋酶）进行系统发育分析，结果显示蝙蝠冠状病毒聚集在三个不同的组中：第1组、另一个包括所有SARS和类SARS冠状病毒的组（假定的第4组）以及一个独立的蝙蝠冠状病毒组（假定的第5组）。进一步的基因分析表明，不同种类的蝙蝠携带不同组的冠状病毒，并且来自不同地理位置的单个蝙蝠物种携带相似的冠状病毒。因此，本研究结果表明，蝙蝠可能在冠状病毒的生态学和进化中发挥不可或缺的作用。
