Background: Although the finding of SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in caged palm civets suggested that wild animals are the origin of SARS-CoV, subsequent studies suggested that civet may have served only as an amplification host. In 2005, we identified a coronavirus closely related to SARS-CoV (bat-SARS-CoV) in Chinese horseshoe bats. However, it remains to be determined if bat-SARS-CoV or other coronaviruses in bats are the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV.Methods: To understand the diversity and evolution of coronaviruses in bats, a 2-year surveillance study for coronaviruses was conducted in bats from various rural areas in Hong Kong. As coronaviruses are known to have high recombination frequency, the genomes of the identified novel coronaviruses were also sequenced and analyzed to determine possible recombination events responsible for interspecies transmission.Results: Among 1389 bats of 16 species from 24 different locations, coronaviruses were identified from anal swabs of 132 (9.5%) bats by RT-PCR. Phylogenetic analysis revealed
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