Biology of the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (original) (raw)
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Coronaviruses (CoVs) are RNA viruses that have become a major public health concern since the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-CoV (SARS-CoV) outbreak in 2002. The continuous evolution of coronaviruses was further highlighted with the emergence of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-CoV (MERS-CoV) outbreak in 2012. Currently, the world is concerned about the 2019 novel CoV (SARS-CoV-2) that was initially identified in the city of Wuhan, China in December 2019. Patients presented with severe viral pneumonia and respiratory illness. The number of cases has been mounting since then. As of late February 2020, tens of thousands of cases and several thousand deaths have been reported in China alone, in addition to thousands of cases in other countries. Although the fatality rate of SARS-CoV-2 is currently lower than SARS-CoV, the virus seems to be highly contagious based on the number of infected cases to date. In this review, we discuss structure, genome organization, entry of CoVs into target cells, and provide insights into past and present outbreaks. The future of human CoV outbreaks will not only depend on how the viruses will evolve, but will also depend on how we develop efficient prevention and treatment strategies to deal with this continuous threat.
Molecular biology of coronaviruses: current knowledge
Heliyon, 2020
The emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, marked the third introduction of a highly pathogenic coronavirus into the human population in the twenty-first century. The constant spillover of coronaviruses from natural hosts to humans has been linked to human activities and other factors. The seriousness of this infection and the lack of effective, licensed countermeasures clearly underscore the need of more detailed and comprehensive understanding of coronavirus molecular biology. Coronaviruses are large, enveloped viruses with a positive sense single-stranded RNA genome. Currently, coronaviruses are recognized as one of the most rapidly evolving viruses due to their high genomic nucleotide substitution rates and recombination. At the molecular level, the coronaviruses employ complex strategies to successfully accomplish genome expression, virus particle assembly and virion progeny release. As the health threats from coronaviruses are constant and long-term, understanding the molecular biology of coronaviruses and controlling their spread has significant implications for global health and economic stability. This review is intended to provide an overview of our current basic knowledge of the molecular biology of coronaviruses, which is important as basic knowledge for the development of coronavirus countermeasures.
SARS-CoV-2: a new dimension to our understanding of coronaviruses
International Microbiology, 2021
Coronaviruses have marked their significant emergence since the twenty-first century with the outbreaks of three out of the seven existing human coronaviruses, including the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in 2012, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in 2019. These viruses have not only acquired large-scale transmission during their specified outbreak period, but cases of MERS-CoV still remain active, although there is only limited transmission. While, on the other hand, SARS-CoV-2 continues to remain a rising threat to global public health. The recent novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), emerged during December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and has repeatedly raised questions about its characteristic variability. Despite belonging to the same family, SARS-CoV-2 has proven to be quite difficult to control and contain in terms of transmissibility, leading to around 19.8 million reported cases and more than 730,000 deaths of individuals worldwide. Here, we discuss how SARS-CoV-2 differs from its two other related human coronaviruses in terms of genome composition, site of infection, and transmissibility, among several other notable aspects-all indicating to the possibility that it is these variations in addition to other unknowns that are contributing to this virus' differing deadly pattern.
Coronaviruses: A Review of the Genetics and Proteins Associated with the Life Cycle of SARS-CoV-2
Current Trends in OMICS
The history of coronaviruses dates back to the 1960s. There have been several coronaviruses induced epidemics such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in the recent past. More recently, another coronavirus-induced disease, namely COVID-19 emerged as an epidemic and rapidly developed into a pandemic due to the high transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2. It emerged as an epidemic novel COVID-19, in late 2019, instigated by SARS-CoV2. This review analyses the different aspects of SARS-CoV-2 including its genomic structure, protein composition, transmission mode, and life cycle. SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus, which codes four structural proteins along with various accessory proteins. A unique property of COVID-19 is that it incorporates a polybasic cleavage site, which increases its pathogenicity. The genomic variation of COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 is assumed to be the reason behind its high transmissibility. It was identified that this genomic variati...
Current Insights into the Genomics of Novel Coronavirus: SARS-Cov-2
2020
Coronavirus (2019 nCoV)a deadly virus which causes panic throughout the world particularly in Wuhan region of China in 2020 affecting more than 12000 people as on 02-02-2020. Coronaviruses belong to a class of single stranded RNA viruses from the order Nidovirales. The word “Corona” itself means crown taken from its structure due to its large bulb like outgrowths, known to be among largest RNA virus, size ranging from 27 to 32 Kb. This virus is known to have unique strategy for replication. This review will lay emphasis on various animal coronaviruses and their pathogenesis, and the newly discovered human emerging pathogen 2019 nCoV, no treatment i.e. no vaccines or antiviral drugs are approved for its prevention or treatment. This review will help understand the biology and potential risk of coronaviruses.
Coronaviruses: an overview of their replication and pathogenesis
Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.), 2015
Coronaviruses (CoVs), enveloped positive-sense RNA viruses, are characterized by club-like spikes that project from their surface, an unusually large RNA genome, and a unique replication strategy. Coronaviruses cause a variety of diseases in mammals and birds ranging from enteritis in cows and pigs and upper respiratory disease in chickens to potentially lethal human respiratory infections. Here we provide a brief introduction to coronaviruses discussing their replication and pathogenicity, and current prevention and treatment strategies. We also discuss the outbreaks of the highly pathogenic Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and the recently identified Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV).
Journal of thee Medical Sciences (Berkala Ilmu Kedokteran), 2020
Recent outbreaks of human coronaviruses, officially named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), have put health authorities worldwide on a high alert. Firstly emerged in the city of Wuhan, China, SARS-CoV-2 infection is rapidly escalating into a global pandemic. It is first thought as the result of a zoonotic transmission event, similar to the previous epidemic of coronaviruses. However, a continuously increasing number of confirmed cases indicates that the virus gains capacity of efficient human-to-human transmission. Soon after the pandemic is arising, many efforts are focused on identifying the origin of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the human population. Current evidence suggests that the virus is probably derived from bat or pangolin coronaviruses as the natural host. Whether intermediate host(s) exist in the transmission cascade from bat or pangolin to humans is, to a great extent, elusive. This information is essential as the basis for infection prevention and control measures. In this review, we discuss our recent understanding of SARS-CoV-2 biology, highlighting its origin and molecular evolution. ABSTRAK Saat ini, kita sedang menghadapi wabah yang disebabkan oleh human corona virus, yang secara resmi diberi nama severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Wabah ini medapatkan perhatian yang luas dari berbagai institusi kesehatan di seluruh dunia. Dilaporkan pertama kali terjadi di kota Wuhan, Cina, wabah SARS-CoV-2 secara cepat telah menyebar ke banyak negara dan berkembang menjadi pandemi. Diduga awalnya bahwa virus SARS-CoV-2 ini berasal dari transmisi hewan kemanusia, sama seperti wabah coronaviruses sebelumnya. Akan tetapi, jumlah kasus terkonfirmasi yang semakin meningkat, menunjukkan indikasi bahwa virus SARS-CoV-2 telah memiliki kapasitas untuk menular secara efektif dari manusia ke manusia. Segera setelah wabah terjadi, berbagai studi difokuskan untuk melacak asal urus virus SARS-CoV-2 sebelum menginfeksi manusia. Buktibukti terkini menunjukkan bahwa SARS-CoV-2 kemungkinan berasal dari coronaviruses yang bersirkulasi di bats (kelelawar) atau pangolins. Apakah terdapat intermediate host antara kelelawar atau pangolins dan manusia, masih belum jelas. Informasi semacam ini sangat penting sebagai dasar tindakan pencegahan dan pengendalian wabah. Pada artikel ini, kami membahas tentang biologi virus SARS-CoV-2, dengan fokus pada asal usul dan evolusi virus tersebut.
The Molecular Biology of Coronaviruses
Advances in Virus Research, 1983
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Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences, 2020
The novel coronavirus (CoV), earlier named 2019-nCoV, and later as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus - 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has now created havoc and panic across the globe by its severe ongoing pandemic. This virus has to date as of 23rd November 2020, killed nearly 1.4 million persons out of more than 59 million confirmed positive cases, while spreading rapidly in more than 215 countries and territories. Taxonomically, SARS-CoV-2 has been characterized in genus Betacoronavirus, which contains non-segmented positive-sense, single-stranded (ss) RNA genome of 30 kb. The first two open reading frames (ORFs), ORF1a and ORF1b, of SARS-CoV-2, encode 16 non-structural proteins (nsp1-nsp16), whereas other ORFs encodes four main structural proteins (sp) [spike (s) by ORF2, envelope (E) by ORF4, membrane (M) by ORF5, nucleoprotein (N) by ORF9], and accessory proteins essential for the virus fitness, pathogenesis and host immunity evasion. Sequence alignments of SARS-CoV-2 with genomes...
The Human Coronaviruses (HCoVs) and the Molecular Mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 Infection
2020
In humans, coronaviruses can cause infections of the respiratory system, with damage of varying severity depending on the virus examined: ranging from mild or moderate upper respiratory tract diseases, such as the common cold, to pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death. Human coronaviruses known to date, common throughout the world, are seven. The most common - and least harmful - ones were discovered in the 1960s and cause a common cold. Others, more dangerous, were identified in the early 2000s and cause more severe respiratory tract infections. Among these the SARS-CoV, isolated in 2003 and responsible for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (the so-called SARS), which appeared in China in November 2002, the Coronavirus 2012 (2012-nCoV) cause of the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome from Coronavirus (MERS), which exploded in June 2012 in Saudi Arabia, and actually SARS-CoV-2. On December 31, 2019, a new Coronavirus strain was reported in Wu...