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SARS virus is an infectious agent belonging to the virus family Coronaviridae, which causes severe respiratory illnesses in humans and animals. SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) coronavirus (CoV) is a novel member of this family that causes acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which is associated with high mortality rates.
Bats are a likely reservoir of zoonotic coronaviruses (CoVs). Here, analyzing bat CoV sequences in China, the authors find that alpha-CoVs have switched hosts more frequently than betaCoVs, identify a bat family and genus that are highly involved in host-switching, and define hotspots of CoV evolutionary diversity.
To understand why sarbecoviruses display different abilities in using ACE2 from various species, the authors investigate the ACE2 orthologue tropism of these viruses and elucidate how they have evolved along three distinct paths through RBD indels and specific residues.
In this study, the authors report the small molecule inhibitor EDP-235 as a potent inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 and show that it is effective against a range of variants and other coronaviruses and that it suppresses virus replication, reduces lung damage, and prevents transmission in small animal models.
In this study, Mears et al. show that SARS-CoV-2 can evolve not only through protein changes but also through functional RNA adaptations to increase fitness and immune evasion.
In a recent study, Liu, Huang, Guo, McCallum et al. present a method to create functional, customized coronavirus receptors, which could facilitate the development of infection models that do not rely on native receptors.
