Coronavirus: Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli publishes new paper on pathogen’s evolution
- Research by scientist from Wuhan laboratory accused by Donald Trump of being the source of virus that sparked Covid-19 pandemic looks at how Sars-related pathogens have adapted to suit human hosts
- Shi this month took to social media to dismiss rumours she had defected from China and taken hundreds of confidential documents with her
The head of the centre for emerging infectious diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Shi said in a paper published on the preprint website Biorxiv.org on Thursday that the Chinese horseshoe bat was the natural host for Sars-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs).
The research, which has not been peer-reviewed, said that the bat carried many coronaviruses with a high degree of genetic diversity, particularly in the spike protein, which suggested they had evolved over time to aid their transmission.
“All tested bat SARSr-CoV spike proteins had a higher binding affinity to human ACE2 than to bat ACE2, although they showed a 10-fold lower binding affinity to human ACE2 compared with their SARS-CoV counterpart,” the paper said.
The ACE2, or angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, is a protein that provides the entry point for the coronavirus to hook onto and infect human cells, while the spike protein is the part of the virus that binds to human cells.
Earlier laboratory research established a strong genetic link between the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 and one found in a horseshoe bat in southeastern China.