Scarpa Fabio, Imperia Elena, Ciccozzi Alessandra, Pascarella Stefano, Quaranta Miriana, Giovanetti Marta, Borsetti Alessandra, Petrosillo Nicola, Ciccozzi Massimo
Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, 07100 Sassari, Italy.
Unit of Medical Statistics and Molecular Epidemiology, University of Campus Bio-Medico, 00128 Rome, Italy.
Infect Dis Rep. 2023 Jun 1;15(3):307-318. doi: 10.3390/idr15030031.
Bats are well-known to be natural reservoirs of various zoonotic coronaviruses, which have caused outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2002 and 2019, respectively. In late 2020, two new were found in Russia, isolated in bats, i.e., Khosta-1 in and Khosta-2 in . The potential danger associated with these new species of is that Khosta-2 has been found to interact with the same entry receptor as SARS-CoV-2. Our multidisciplinary approach in this study demonstrates that Khosta-1 and -2 currently appear to be not dangerous with low risk of spillover, as confirmed by prevalence data and by phylogenomic reconstruction. In addition, the interaction between Khosta-1 and -2 with ACE2 appears weak, and furin cleavage sites are absent. While the possibility of a spillover event cannot be entirely excluded, it is currently highly unlikely. This research further emphasizes the importance of assessing the zoonotic potential of widely distributed batborne CoV in order to monitor changes in genomic composition of viruses and prevent spillover events (if any).
众所周知，蝙蝠是多种人畜共患冠状病毒的天然宿主，这些病毒分别在2002年和2019年引发了严重急性呼吸综合征（SARS）疫情和新冠疫情。2020年末，在俄罗斯发现了两种新型冠状病毒，它们分别从蝙蝠中分离出来，即克拉斯诺亚尔斯克1号病毒（Khosta-1）和克拉斯诺亚尔斯克2号病毒（Khosta-2）。与这些新型冠状病毒相关的潜在危险在于，已发现克拉斯诺亚尔斯克2号病毒与严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）使用相同的进入受体。我们在本研究中采用的多学科方法表明，根据流行率数据和系统发育基因组重建结果，克拉斯诺亚尔斯克1号病毒和2号病毒目前似乎并不危险，溢出风险较低。此外，克拉斯诺亚尔斯克1号病毒和2号病毒与血管紧张素转换酶2（ACE2）之间的相互作用似乎较弱，并且不存在弗林蛋白酶切割位点。虽然不能完全排除溢出事件的可能性，但目前这种可能性非常小。这项研究进一步强调了评估广泛分布的蝙蝠传播冠状病毒人畜共患潜力的重要性，以便监测病毒基因组组成的变化并预防溢出事件（如果有）。
