Genomic and protein structure modelling analysis depicts the origin and infectivity of 2019-nCoV, a new coronavirus which caused a pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, China

Dong, Ning; Yang, Xuemei; Ye, Lianwei; Chen, Kaichao; Chan, Edward Wai-Chi; Yang, Mengsu; Chen, Sheng

Detailed genomic and structure-based analysis of a new coronavirus, namely 2019-nCoV, showed that the new virus is a new type of bat coronavirus and is genetically fairly distant from the human SARS coronavirus. Structure analysis of the spike (S) protein of this new virus showed that its S protein only binds weakly to the ACE2 receptor on human cells whereas the human SARS coronavirus exhibits strongly affinity to the ACE receptor. These findings suggest that the new virus does not readily transmit between humans and should theoretically not able to cause very serious human infection. These data are important to guide design of infection control policy and inform the public on the nature of threat imposed by 2019-nCov when results of direct laboratory tests on this virus are not expected to be available in the near future.