National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA.
EMBO Rep. 2023 Apr 5;24(4):e56992. doi: 10.15252/embr.202356992. Epub 2023 Mar 6.
After more than 2 years of intensive investigation, the direct ancestors of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) remain unidentified. Molecular epidemiology strongly supports a timeline marked by multiple, independent zoonoses in late 2019 (Pekar et al, 2022) solidifying the consensus hypothesis that close relatives of SARS-CoV-2 with high zoonotic potential were naturally circulating prior to the start of the pandemic (Andersen et al, 2020). Understanding where and when these ancestors acquired the genomic features that resulted in a virus with epidemic potential could enable the identification and mitigation of future pandemic viruses, even before the first human infection.
经过 2 年多的深入调查，新型严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2（SARS-CoV-2）的直接祖先仍然无法确定。分子流行病学强烈支持一个时间线，该时间线标志着 2019 年末的多次独立人畜共患病（Pekar 等人，2022 年），巩固了这样的共识假说，即具有高人畜共患潜力的 SARS-CoV-2 的近亲在大流行开始之前就自然传播（Andersen 等人，2020 年）。了解这些祖先在何处以及何时获得了导致具有流行潜力的病毒的基因组特征，即使在首次人类感染之前，也可以识别和减轻未来的大流行病毒。
