Comparative molecular epidemiology of two closely related coronaviruses, bovine coronavirus (BCoV) and human coronavirus OC43 (HCoV-OC43), reveals a different evolutionary pattern

Abstract

Bovine coronaviruses (BCoVs) are widespread around the world and cause enteric or respiratory infections among cattle. The current study includes 13 samples from BCoVs collected in Normandy during an 11-year period (from 2003 to 2014), 16 French HCoV-OC43s, and 113 BCoVs or BCoVs-like sequence data derived from partial or complete genome sequences available on GenBank. According to a genotyping method developed previously for HCoV-OC43, BCoVs and BCoVs-like are distributed on three main sub-clusters named C1, C2, and C3. Sub-cluster C1 includes BCoVs and BCoVs-like from America and Asia. Sub-cluster C2 includes BCoVs from Europe. Sub-cluster C3 includes prototype, vaccine, or attenuated BCoV strains. The phylogenetic analyses revealed the monophyletic status of the BCoVs from France reported here for the first time. Moreover, BCoV exhibits a relative genetic stability when compared to HCoV-OC43 we previously described from the same region. The numerous recombination detected between HCoV-OC43 were much less frequent for BCoV. The analysis points thus to the influence of different evolutive constraints in these two close groups.

SARS-CoV related Betacoronavirus and diverse Alphacoronavirus members found in western old-world

“…Several coronaviruses are known to recombine frequently and this molecular mechanism is a main driving-force in their evolution (e.g. HcoV-OC43, HcoV-NL63) (Kin et al, 2015(Kin et al, , 2016Pyrc et al, 2006;Dominguez et al, 2012). Unfortunately, due to unique and short size region used for detection in this study, this hypothesis was not tested.…”

Emerging and re-emerging coronaviruses in pigs

“…Among betacoronaviruses, there are the two human CoVs, respiratory HCoVÀOC43 associated with common colds and human enteric CoV (HECoV-4408) isolated from a child with diarrhea that are suggested to have been introduced into human population from bovine species [23,39]. Additionally, bovinelike CoVs were identified in captive wild ruminants and camelids such as waterbuck, sambar deer, white-tailed deer, elk, giraffe, sable antelope [18, [40][41][42], alpaca, llama, and dromedary camel [43]. Deltacoronaviruses are genetically highly heterogenous and represent the only genus in the Coronaviridae family that infects avian and mammalian species with frequent host-shift events [44,45].…”

Detection and characterisation of coronaviruses in migratory and non-migratory Australian wild birds

“…This was the only sample in which two coronaviruses were detected. In the order Anseriformes, 22 gamma-CoV's (grey teals (11), Pacific black ducks (10) and radjah shelduck (1)) and one delta-CoV (Pacific black duck) were identified. In the order Charadriiformes, 32 gamma-CoV's (curlew sandpipers (3), red-necked stints (9), ruddy turnstones (20)) and 8 delta-CoV's (curlew sandpiper (1), red-necked stints (2), ruddy turnstones (5)) were identified.…”

“…Interspecies spill-over of coronaviruses into new hosts occurs frequently, with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV being the most notable examples of spill-over into humans [8][9][10] . Bovine coronavirus, canine respiratory coronavirus, dromedary camel coronavirus and even human coronavirus OC43 all potentially come from the same common ancestor, illustrating substantive host flexibility [11][12][13] . SARS-CoV likely originated in bats while PDCoV interestingly is likely to have originated in birds 6,8,9 .…”