Today’s video goes over basic coronavirus taxonomy and some of the details on SARS-CoV-2 origins
Editor’s notes:
3:10: Although the text at the bottom of the slide refers to D614G as a mutation, the better word for it would be an ‘amino acid change.’ The word mutation refers to a change in genetic code, while the term D614G is referring to a change in amino acid at position 614 (from D, aspartate, to G, glycine).
3:10: The text at the bottom of the slide is referring to a pre-print that got a lot of attention in the media but was not peer-reviewed or formally published. This paper in Cell contains was published on the same topic by this same research group following a peer review process.
Note: It’s important to remember that while work done suggests that the D614G amino acid change may impact transmission, more research needs to be done before this can be treated as a concrete conclusion.
3:30: An article in Nature dives deeper into the evolutionary origins of SARS-CoV-2. The paper suggests that the ancestral lineage of SARS-CoV-2 may have been circulating in bats for a long period of time prior to the start of the pandemic. As our editor says, “We need to keep funding research into emerging pathogens!”
Reference List:
Slide 1 (opening slide):
•Link to image (left): https://www.cureus.com/articles/29670-a-comprehensive-literature-review-on-the-clinical-presentation-and-management-of-the-pandemic-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19
•Link to image (right): https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/infectious-disease/novel-coronavirus-hits-China/98/web/2020/01
Slide 2 (taxonomy):
• Link to ICTV taxonomy (image) https://talk.ictvonline.org/taxonomy/•Link to Functional assessment of cell entry and receptor usage for SARS-CoV-2 and other lineage B betacoronaviruses paper in Nature Microbiology https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0688-y
Slide 3 (origins):
• Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus. Hu B, Zeng LP, Yang XL, Ge XY, Zhang W, et al. (2017) Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus. PLOS Pathogens 13(11): e1006698. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698
• Korber et al., Tracking Changes in SARS-CoV-2 Spike: Evidence that D614G Increases Infectivity of the COVID-19 Virus, Cell (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.
