Pan Coronavirus Genomic Surveillance of a Large NHP Colony

项目总结/摘要 2019年底出现的新型冠状病毒（SARS-CoV-2）迅速在世界各地传播 杀死了数百万人这一流行病的一个关键方面仍然没有得到充分研究，那就是免疫力对 季节性冠状病毒对COVID-19疾病的影响。几条证据表明有影响，但 这种影响的性质尚不清楚。我们有初步的数据证实我们的5,000只恒河猴 猕猴体内有很大一部分动物对来源不明的冠状病毒具有预先存在的免疫力。 这种免疫力在使用这些动物治疗COVID-19和其他冠状病毒疾病时可能很重要。我们 假设我们的群体季节性地传播人类季节性冠状病毒，但我们需要确定 真正的病毒在传播在这里，我们将使用多种方法来评估这些感染的频率 并识别真正的病毒。在目标1中，我们将使用泛冠状病毒引物来定量冠状病毒 我们殖民地的传染病我们将对鼻腔和直肠部位进行采样，因为已知冠状病毒会在 两个人都是在目标2中，我们将使用下一代测序技术来识别正在传播的病毒。我们将应用 系统发育的方法来表征病毒的多样性或病毒在我们的殖民地。这些数据将具有 重要的意义，使用猕猴的冠状病毒感染的一般，并可能揭示了 冠状病毒家族

Project Summary/Abstract The novel coronavirus that emerged in late 2019, termed SARS-CoV-2, quickly spread throughout the world and has killed millions. A critical aspect of this pandemic that remains understudied is the impact of immunity to seasonal coronaviruses on COVID-19 disease. Several lines of evidence suggest there is an impact but the nature of that impact remains unclear. We have preliminary data confirming our colony of 5,000 rhesus macaques harbors a large fraction of animals with preexisting immunity to coronaviruses of unknown origin. This immunity may be important in the use of these animals for COVID-19 and other coronavirus disease. We hypothesize that our colony seasonally circulates human seasonal coronaviruses but we need to identify the actual viruses circulating. Here, we will use multiple approaches to assess the frequency of these infections and to identify the actual viruses. In Aim 1, we will use pan-coronavirus primers to quantify coronavirus infections in our colony. We will sample both nasal and rectal sites as coronaviruses are known to be shed from both. In Aim 2, we will use next generation sequencing to identify the viruses circulating. We will apply phylogenetic approaches to characterize the diversity of the virus or viruses in our colony. These data will have important implications for the use of macaques for coronavirus infections in general and may shed light on the coronavirus family.