Analysis of the Hosts and Transmission Paths of SARS-CoV-2 in the COVID-19 Outbreak
Analysis of the Hosts and Transmission Paths of SARS-CoV-2 in the COVID-19 Outbreak
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COVID-19 爆发中 SARS-CoV-2 的宿主和传播路径分析。
DOI：
10.3390/genes11060637
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发表时间：
2020-06-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Yau, Stephen S-T
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Dong, Rui;Pei, Shaojun;Yau, Stephen S-T
2019年12月，中国武汉首次报告了严重呼吸道疾病COVID-19，并从武汉蔓延到许多省份。相应的病原体很快被确定为一种名为SARS-CoV-2（原2019-nCoV）的新型冠状病毒。截至2020年5月2日，全球已确诊COVID-19病例300多万例，报告死亡病例235290例，并且这一数字仍在增加。了解SARS-CoV-2与已知冠状病毒的系统发育关系，识别其宿主，对预防下一轮紧急疫情的发生具有重要意义。在这项研究中，我们采用了一种有效的无比对方法，即自然载体方法，基于基因组和蛋白质数据对冠状病毒进行系统发育分析和分类。我们的研究结果表明，SARS-CoV-2与SARS-CoV分支密切相关，但又不同。通过分析SARS-CoV-2毒株与存在于动物宿主中的冠状病毒的遗传距离，我们确定最可能的传播途径来自蝙蝠、穿山甲和人类。
The severe respiratory disease COVID-19 was initially reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and spread into many provinces from Wuhan. The corresponding pathogen was soon identified as a novel coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 (formerly, 2019-nCoV). As of 2 May, 2020, over 3 million COVID-19 cases had been confirmed, and 235,290 deaths had been reported globally, and the numbers are still increasing. It is important to understand the phylogenetic relationship between SARS-CoV-2 and known coronaviruses, and to identify its hosts for preventing the next round of emergency outbreak. In this study, we employ an effective alignment-free approach, the Natural Vector method, to analyze the phylogeny and classify the coronaviruses based on genomic and protein data. Our results show that SARS-CoV-2 is closely related to, but distinct from the SARS-CoV branch. By analyzing the genetic distances from the SARS-CoV-2 strain to the coronaviruses residing in animal hosts, we establish that the most possible transmission path originates from bats to pangolins to humans.