Wang Wen, Tian Jun-Hua, Chen Xiao, Hu Rui-Xue, Lin Xian-Dan, Pei Yuan-Yuan, Lv Jia-Xin, Zheng Jiao-Jiao, Dai Fa-Hui, Song Zhi-Gang, Chen Yan-Mei, Zhang Yong-Zhen
Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, Shanghai key laboratory of organ transplantation of Zhongshan Hospital, State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, School of Life Sciences and Human Phenome Institute, Fudan University, No. 2901 Caolang Road, Jinshan district, Shanghai 200000, China.
Hubei Key Laboratory of Resources Utilization and Sustainable Pest Management, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, No. 1 Shizishan Street, Hongshan district, Wuhan 430000, China.
Virus Evol. 2022 Jun 4;8(1):veac046. doi: 10.1093/ve/veac046. eCollection 2022.
Over the last several decades, no emerging virus has had a profound impact on the world as the SARS-CoV-2 that emerged at the end of 2019 has done. To know where severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) originated from and how it jumped into human population, we immediately started a surveillance investigation in wild mammals in and around Wuhan when we determined the agent. Herein, coronaviruses were screened in the lung, liver, and intestinal tissue samples from fifteen raccoon dogs, seven Siberian weasels, three hog badgers, and three Reeves's muntjacs collected in Wuhan and 334 bats collected around Wuhan. Consequently, eight alphacoronaviruses were identified in raccoon dogs, while nine betacoronaviruses were found in bats. Notably, the newly discovered alphacoronaviruses shared a high whole-genome sequence similarity (97.9 per cent) with the canine coronavirus (CCoV) strain 2020/7 sampled from domestic dog in the UK. Some betacoronaviruses identified here were closely related to previously known bat SARS-CoV-related viruses sampled from Hubei province and its neighbors, while the remaining betacoronaviruses exhibited a close evolutionary relationship with SARS-CoV-related bat viruses in the gene tree and clustered together with SARS-CoV-2-related bat coronaviruses in the and gene trees, but with relatively low similarity. Additionally, these newly discovered betacoronaviruses seem unlikely to bind angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 because of the deletions in the two key regions of their receptor-binding motifs. Finally, we did not find SARS-CoV-2 or its progenitor virus in these animal samples. Due to the high circulation of CCoVs in raccoon dogs in Wuhan, more scientific efforts are warranted to better understand their diversity and evolution in China and the possibility of a potential human agent.
在过去几十年里，没有哪种新出现的病毒像2019年底出现的严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）那样对世界产生深远影响。为了弄清楚SARS-CoV-2的起源以及它是如何传播到人类群体中的，我们在确定病原体后，立即在武汉及其周边的野生哺乳动物中展开了监测调查。在此，我们对从武汉采集的15只貉、7只黄鼬、3只猪獾和3只赤麂的肺、肝和肠道组织样本，以及武汉周边采集的334只蝙蝠进行了冠状病毒筛查。结果，在貉中鉴定出8种甲型冠状病毒，在蝙蝠中发现了9种乙型冠状病毒。值得注意的是，新发现的甲型冠状病毒与从英国家犬中采样的犬冠状病毒（CCoV）毒株2020/7具有较高的全基因组序列相似性（97.9%）。这里鉴定出的一些乙型冠状病毒与之前从湖北省及其周边地区采样的已知蝙蝠SARS-CoV相关病毒密切相关，而其余的乙型冠状病毒在基因树中与SARS-CoV相关蝙蝠病毒呈现出密切的进化关系，并在S和ORF1ab基因树中与SARS-CoV-2相关蝙蝠冠状病毒聚集在一起，但相似性相对较低。此外，由于其受体结合基序的两个关键区域存在缺失，这些新发现的乙型冠状病毒似乎不太可能与血管紧张素转换酶2结合。最后，我们在这些动物样本中未发现SARS-CoV-2或其祖病毒。鉴于CCoVs在武汉貉中的高流行率，需要更多的科学努力来更好地了解它们在中国的多样性和进化情况以及成为潜在人类病原体的可能性。
