Detection of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Genome in an Air Sample Originating from a Camel Barn Owned by an Infected Patient

Azhar, Esam I.; Hashem, Anwar M.; El-Kafrawy, Sherif A.; Sohrab, Sayed Sartaj; Aburizaiza, Asad S.; Farraj, Suha A.; Hassan, Ahmed M.; Al-Saeed, Muneera S.; Jamjoom, Ghazi A.; Madani, Tariq A.

To further confirm these results, extracted RNA was subjected to partial genome sequencing of a 665-nucleotide (nt) segment in ORF1a (accession number KJ740999), a 706-nt segment in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) (accession number KJ741000), a 688-nt segment in ORF1b (accession number KJ741001), a 452-nt segment in UpE (accession number KJ741002), and a 403-nt segment in the nucleocapsid (N) region (accession number KJ741003) of the viral genome. Here, we con- firmed the presence of MERS-CoV-specific sequences in the first air sample and found that these fragments are 100% identical to the corresponding regions in our previous isolates MERS-CoV-Jeddah-human-1 and MERS-CoV-Jeddah-camel-1, obtained from the patient and the infected camel in this barn, respectively (see Fig. S1 in the supplemental material). Of note, further partial genome sequencing of a 697-nt segment of the viral RNA in the ORF1a region (accession number KJ740998) from the air sample showed that the virus is identical to the original isolates obtained from the nasal samples collected from the patient and the infected camel, without the cell culture-adapted mutation (T10154C) observed in our earlier report (see Fig. S2 in the supplemental material). These data confirm our previous report (20) and show evidence for the presence of the airborne MERS-CoV genome in the same barn that was owned by the patient and housed the infected camels. The detection of viral RNA in the air sample collected on the same day that one of the camels' samples tested positive for MERS-CoV and the fact that all genome sequences obtained from the air sample were identical to those from the camel and the patient samples suggest that the detected viral RNA originated from the camels.