The battle against SARS and MERS coronaviruses: Reservoirs and Animal Models

Gong, Shu-ran; Bao, Lin-lin

Yuan KY et al 1 assayed 13 different species of bats, 5 different species of rodents and 20 rhesus macaques. The results proved that SARS-CoV in bats was the most closely related to that in humans. In this assay, the SARS-like CoV in Chinese horseshoe bats has 88%-92% sequence homology with human SARS-CoV. Moreover, the S2 m motif in its 3ʹUTRs and the phylogenetic analyses of four fully characterized genomes of SARS-like CoV indicated that the horseshoe bats have great potential to be one of the natural reservoirs. 2, 3 Given that, the same research suggested that, even though there are no available migration patterns, it is known that bats can migrate approximately 30 miles for hibernation, and the distance between their wild habitats and markets in Shenzheng and Hong Kong is only 17 miles, which means that geographically widespread infections of SARS-like CoV can be explained by transmission via bats.