Virus Ecology Section, Laboratory of Virology, National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton, MT 59840, USA.
Paul G. Allen School for Global Health, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA.
Viruses. 2021 Mar 31;13(4):592. doi: 10.3390/v13040592.
Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a persistent zoonotic pathogen with frequent spillover from dromedary camels to humans in the Arabian Peninsula, resulting in limited outbreaks of MERS with a high case-fatality rate. Full genome sequence data from camel-derived MERS-CoV variants show diverse lineages circulating in domestic camels with frequent recombination. More than 90% of the available full MERS-CoV genome sequences derived from camels are from just two countries, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and United Arab Emirates (UAE). In this study, we employ a novel method to amplify and sequence the partial MERS-CoV genome with high sensitivity from nasal swabs of infected camels. We recovered more than 99% of the MERS-CoV genome from field-collected samples with greater than 500 TCID equivalent per nasal swab from camel herds sampled in Jordan in May 2016. Our subsequent analyses of 14 camel-derived MERS-CoV genomes show a striking lack of genetic diversity circulating in Jordan camels relative to MERS-CoV genome sequences derived from large camel markets in KSA and UAE. The low genetic diversity detected in Jordan camels during our study is consistent with a lack of endemic circulation in these camel herds and reflective of data from MERS outbreaks in humans dominated by nosocomial transmission following a single introduction as reported during the 2015 MERS outbreak in South Korea. Our data suggest transmission of MERS-CoV among two camel herds in Jordan in 2016 following a single introduction event.
中东呼吸综合征相关冠状病毒（MERS-CoV）是一种持续性人畜共患病原体，经常从阿拉伯半岛的单峰驼溢出到人类，导致 MERS 有限爆发，病死率高。来自骆驼衍生的 MERS-CoV 变体的全基因组序列数据显示，在国内骆驼中存在多种流行的谱系，并经常发生重组。超过 90%的现有骆驼来源的 MERS-CoV 全基因组序列来自沙特阿拉伯王国（KSA）和阿拉伯联合酋长国（UAE）这两个国家。在这项研究中，我们采用了一种新的方法，从 2016 年 5 月在约旦采集的感染骆驼的鼻腔拭子中，以高灵敏度扩增和测序部分 MERS-CoV 基因组。我们从骆驼群的鼻腔拭子中恢复了超过 99%的 MERS-CoV 基因组，每个拭子的 500 个组织培养感染剂量（TCID）以上。我们对 14 个骆驼衍生的 MERS-CoV 基因组的后续分析表明，与从沙特阿拉伯和阿联酋的大型骆驼市场获得的 MERS-CoV 基因组序列相比，在约旦骆驼中循环的遗传多样性明显缺乏。在我们的研究中，在约旦骆驼中检测到的遗传多样性低，与这些骆驼群中缺乏地方性循环一致，并反映了 2015 年韩国 MERS 爆发期间以单一引入为主导的医院传播为主的人类 MERS 爆发的数据。我们的数据表明，2016 年，在约旦的两个骆驼群中，在单次引入事件后发生了 MERS-CoV 的传播。
