First genome sequences of buffalo coronavirus from water buffaloes in Bangladesh

Lau, S.K.P.; Tsang, A.K.L.; Shakeel Ahmed, S.; Mahbub Alam, M.; Ahmed, Z.; Wong, P.-C.; Yuen, K.-Y.; Woo, P.C.Y.

Coronaviruses are classified into four genera, with bat coronaviruses known as the gene source of Alphacoronavirus and Betacoronavirus, and avian coronaviruses as the gene source of Gammacoronavirus and Deltacoronavirus [1, 2] . However, lineage A Betacoronavirus is unique among the genus in originating in rodents instead of bats [3] . Lineage A Betacoronavirus comprises several coronavirus species, including murine coronavirus, human coronavirus HKU1, Chinese Rattus coronavirus HKU24, rabbit coronavirus HKU14 and Betacoronavirus 1 [3] [4] [5] . Betacoronavirus 1 is best known for its tendency for recombination and interspecies transmission among various mammalian species [3, 6, 7] . In particular, human coronavirus OC43 (HCoV OC43) likely originated from a relatively recent zoonotic transmission event, with the most recent common ancestor of HCoV OC43 and bovine coronavirus (BCoV) dating to around 1890 [8] . Besides cattle, BCoV-like viruses have been detected in various ungulates, including water buffalo calves with gastroenteritis in Italy [9, 10] . However, only partial gene sequences, the longest one being~9.6 kb spanning ORF1b to nucleocapsid (N), were obtained from the buffalo viruses [9, 10] .