Genetic Evolution of the SARS Coronavirus During the Epidemic in China

After emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in humans, spontaneous mutants better adapted to growth in these new hosts may have developed. . . .

After emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in humans, spontaneous mutants better adapted to growth in these new hosts may have developed. To investigate this possibility, investigators sequenced 29 SARS-CoV isolates obtained from 22 Guangdong patients and 2 Hong Kong patients during early (from primary emergence up to the first superspreader event), middle (subsequent cases, up to the first hotel cluster), and late (from the hotel cluster onward) phases of the epidemic. They compared these sequences with 32 human SARS-CoV sequences and 2 Himalayan palm civet SARS-like-CoV sequences from GenBank.

Among early-phase isolates, five contained a 29-nucleotide (nt) addition in Orf8 that is absent in most reporte…

Reviewing Author

Bradley E. Britigan, MD