Journal
JOURNAL OF GENERAL VIROLOGY
Volume 101, Issue 12, Pages 1251-1260Publisher
MICROBIOLOGY SOC
DOI: 10.1099/jgv.0.001491
Keywords
coronavirus; SARS-CoV-2; MERS-CoV; recombination; emergence; predictions
Categories
Funding
- COVID-19 priority grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology through the Genomics and Gene Regulation Unit
- Canada Research Chairs Programme
- Ontario Early Career Researcher Award
- CIHR COVID-19 rapid response grant
- CIHR New Investigator Award
- Ontario Early Researcher Award
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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) recently emerged to cause widespread infections in humans. SARS-CoV-2 infections have been reported in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) causes seasonal outbreaks with a case fatality rate of -37%. Here we show that there exists a theoretical possibility of future recombination events between SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV RNA. Through computational analyses, we have identified homologous genomic regions within the ORFlab and S genes that could facilitate recombination, and have analysed co-expression patterns of the cellular receptors for SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV, ACE2 and DPP4, respectively, to identify human anatomical sites that could facilitate co-infection. Furthermore, we have investigated the likely susceptibility of various animal species to MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 infection by comparing known virus spike protein-receptor interacting residues. In conclusion, we suggest that a recombination between SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV RNA is possible and urge public health laboratories in high-risk areas to develop diagnostic capability for the detection of recombined coronaviruses in patient samples.
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