Should we discount the laboratory origin of COVID-19?

Segreto, Rossana; Deigin, Yuri; McCairn, Kevin; Sousa, Alejandro; Sirotkin, Dan; Sirotkin, Karl; Couey, Jonathan J.; Jones, Adrian; Zhang, Daoyu

doi:10.1007/s10311-021-01211-0

Cited by 32 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 180 publications

(225 reference statements)

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“…[4] Notably, the pangolin CoV MP789 is the only known CoV to have an RBD almost identical at the amino acid level to the one found in SARS-CoV-2. This RBD is peculiar because it is characterized by a very high binding affinity to the human ACE2 receptor, but it binds poorly to the bat ACE2 receptor, [5,6] making unlikely the authors' suggestion of a bat origin of SARS-CoV-2. This observation also negates the authors' suggestion that SARS-CoV-2's spike protein is not chimeric and that its RBD must be ancestral, but instead it is RaTG13 that is chimeric and whose RBD is a result of recombination.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The genetic structure of SARS‐CoV‐2 does not rule out a laboratory origin

Segreto

Deigin²

2020

BioEssays

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Severe acute respiratory syndrome‐coronavirus (SARS‐CoV)‐2′s origin is still controversial. Genomic analyses show SARS‐CoV‐2 likely to be chimeric, most of its sequence closest to bat CoV RaTG13, whereas its receptor binding domain (RBD) is almost identical to that of a pangolin CoV. Chimeric viruses can arise via natural recombination or human intervention. The furin cleavage site in the spike protein of SARS‐CoV‐2 confers to the virus the ability to cross species and tissue barriers, but was previously unseen in other SARS‐like CoVs. Might genetic manipulations have been performed in order to evaluate pangolins as possible intermediate hosts for bat‐derived CoVs that were originally unable to bind to human receptors? Both cleavage site and specific RBD could result from site‐directed mutagenesis, a procedure that does not leave a trace. Considering the devastating impact of SARS‐CoV‐2 and importance of preventing future pandemics, researchers have a responsibility to carry out a thorough analysis of all possible SARS‐CoV‐2 origins.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The genetic structure of SARS‐CoV‐2 does not rule out a laboratory origin

Segreto

Deigin²

2020

BioEssays

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“…These authors also remarked that special attention should be paid to strains of coronaviruses, which were generated in virology laboratories, but on which there are not available publications. In addition, the same authors, together with other co-workers ( Segreto et al, 2021 ), wrote an Editorial article on the potential laboratory origin of COVID-19. It was concluded that while a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 was possible and the search for a potential host in nature should continue, the amount of peculiar genetic features identified in the genome of SARS-CoV-2 did not rule out a possible gain-of-function origin , which should be therefore discussed in an open scientific debate.…”

Section: Unnatural Origin Of Sars-cov-2mentioning

confidence: 99%

What we know and what we need to know about the origin of SARS-CoV-2

Domingo

2021

Environmental Research

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Since the appearance of the first cases of COVID-19 in 2019, an unprecedented number of documents on that disease have been published in a short space of time. The current available information covers a large number of topics related with COVID-19 and/or the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) responsible of the disease. However, only a limited number of publications have been focused on a controversial issue: the origin of the SARS-CoV-2. In this paper, the scientific literature on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 has been reviewed. Documents published during 2020 and 2021 (January 1-July 19) in journals that are indexed in PubMed and/or Scopus has been considered. The revised studies were grouped according to these two potential origins: natural and unnatural. The analyses of the conclusions of the different documents here assessed show that even considering the zoonotic hypothesis as the most likely, with bats and pangolins being possibly in the origin of the coronavirus, today's date the intermediate source species of SARS-CoV-2 has not been confirmed yet. On the other hand, some researchers point to an unnatural origin of this coronavirus, but their conclusions are not strongly supported by a clear scientific evidence. Given the tremendous severity of the current pandemic, investigations to establish clearly and definitively the origin of SARS-CoV-2, are basic and essential in order to prevent potential future pandemics of similar nature.

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“…Até o momento não foramencontrados morcegos ou hospedeiros animais intermediários que tenham servido de elo para a pandemia (Segreto et al, 2021). Isto contrasta com as investigações da origem da SARS e MERS, cujo hospedeiro natural (morcegos) e os hospedeiros animais intermediários foram identificados em poucos meses (Liu et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

“…Apesar de extensas pesquisas em busca do hospedeiro natural e intermediários, estamos ainda imersos em um mar de especulações (Wacharapluesadee et al, 2021). Desse modo, enquanto o hospedeiro intermediário do SARS-CoV-2 não for encontrado e a presença única do sítio de clivagem da furina não for esclarecida, não saberemos como a COVID-19 emergiu (Coutard et al, 2020;Wu et l., 2020;Câmara et al, 2020a;Segreto et al, 2021) Alguns vírus de morcegos são altamente patogênicos para o homem e outros animais devido ao modo como eles evoluíram nesses mamíferos alados (Drexler et al 2014), cuja resposta imunológica é muito diferente à dos humanos. A infecção humana por um sarbecovírus aumenta muito a carga viral por retardo na produção de interferon e uma desregulação da resposta imune inata (Channappanavar et al, 2016;Wit et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

“…2021seu domínio de ligação para o receptor ECA-2 e o sítio de clivagem da furina por recombinação(Tang et al, 2021). Por fim, ao emergir o SARS-CoV-2 já era bem adaptado aos humanos ao contrário do SARS-CoV-1 e MERS-CoV(Zhan et al, 2020;Segreto et al, 2021).A sucessão de betacoronavírus que estão emergindo desde 2002 sugere um transbordamento em curso de sarbecovírus na natureza. Em apenas 17 anos testemunhamos a emergência daSARS (2002SARS ( -2003, MERS (2012 até o presente em clusters esporádicos) e COVID-19 (2019 e em curso atualmente), no Sudeste Asiático e Península Arábica.…”

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Ecologia do vírus SARS-CoV-2 e estado atual da COVID-19/ SARS-CoV-2 virus ecology and current state of COVID-19

Câmara¹,

Moreno²

2021

Braz. J. Hea. Rev.

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Embora o SARS-CoV-2 tenha sido colocado no subgênero Sarbecovirus, seu protótipo genético não foi isolado ainda de morcegos, além do fato de ele não ser relevantemente infeccioso para esses animais. Ele também possui uma inserção de 12 nucleotídeos não encontrada em outros coronavírus e que que o torna muito infeccioso para humanos. Da mesma forma, não foi ainda identificado o possível hospedeiro intermediário que supostamente tenha sido o elo que deu início a atual pandemia a partir de Wuhan. Em síntese, nada sabemos sobre como surgiu a Covid-19. A OMS denominou a doença que ora fustiga o planeta de COVID-19, uma designação inadequada e que nada informa. Trata-se, porém de uma forma altamente infecciosa da SARS, e por isso deveria ser denominada de SARS-2, conforme os virologistas reconheceram ao classificar o vírus causador

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Should we discount the laboratory origin of COVID-19?

Cited by 32 publications

References 180 publications

The genetic structure of SARS‐CoV‐2 does not rule out a laboratory origin

The genetic structure of SARS‐CoV‐2 does not rule out a laboratory origin

What we know and what we need to know about the origin of SARS-CoV-2

Ecologia do vírus SARS-CoV-2 e estado atual da COVID-19/ SARS-CoV-2 virus ecology and current state of COVID-19

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