The Next Virus to Cause a Pandemic?

Outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS) were both due to a cross-species spread of animal coronaviruses. Given the concern that other animal coronaviruses might be able to cross species, researchers have now used reverse genetic techniques to study a bat coronavirus, WIV1-CoV, that has been shown to infect human cells.

Studies of WIV1-CoV and a mouse-adapted chimeric variant, WIV1-MA15, showed that both readily infected primary human airway epithelial cells. These two viruses could not efficiently infect wild-type mice, but could cause infection and disease in chimeric mice that expressed the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor in lung tissue, although not as efficie…