Chinese Researchers Identify another Bat Coronavirus
NEW DELHI, Feb 21: A team of Chinese researchers are claimed to have discovered a new bat coronavirus with the potential for animal-to-human transmission.
The virus, named HKU5-CoV-2, was found to use the same human receptor as SARS-CoV-2 which was responsible for Covid-19, media reports said.
The study was led by Shi Zhengli, a renowned virologist known as “batwoman” due to her extensive research on bat coronaviruses. The research involved scientists from the Guangzhou Laboratory, Guangzhou Academy of Sciences, Wuhan University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology and their findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell.
The newly discovered virus belongs to the merbecovirus subgenus, which includes the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) virus. It is a new lineage of the HKU5 coronavirus which was initially identified in Japanese pipistrelle bats in Hong Kong.
HKU5-CoV-2 can bind to the human angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE2) receptor, the same receptor used by SARS-CoV-2 to infect human cells, as per the research. “We report the discovery and isolation of a distinct lineage (lineage 2) of HKU5-CoV, which can utilise not only bat ACE2 but also human ACE2 and various mammalian ACE2 orthologs,” the scientists wrote.
The scientists warned that bat merbecoviruses “pose a high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts.” HKU5-CoV-2 can bind to ACE2 receptors in multiple animal species but the researchers cautioned that the virus’s efficiency in binding to human ACE2 is “significantly lower” than that of SARS-CoV-2. “The risk of [HKU5-CoV-2] emergence in human populations should not be exaggerated,” the study noted.
(Manas Dasgupta)
