“…The viral spike glycoprotein can be cleaved into S1 and S2 domains (Bergeron et al, 2005;Du et al, 2007;Follis et al, 2006;Huang et al, 2006;Jackwood et al, 2001;Kawase et al, 2009;Watanabe et al, 2008;Yamada et al, 1998). The S1 domain of the viral spike protein dictates tropism and is responsible for mediating receptor binding (Chen et al, 1997;Han et al, 2007;Hensley and Baric, 1998;Hofmann et al, 2006;Lewicki and Gallagher, 2002;Li et al, 2003Li et al, , 2007Schultze et al, 1996;Thorp and Gallagher, 2004;Wentworth and Holmes, 2001). The S2 domain is responsible for mediating membrane fusion between the virus and host cell, with strong sequence conservation within the family (Bosch et al, 2004;Chu et al, 2006)-hence the mechanics of fusion can be expected to be conserved across the Coronaviridae.…”