The outbreak of COVID-19 poses unprecedent challenges to global health 1 . The new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, shares high sequence identity to SARS-CoV and a bat coronavirus RaTG13 2 . While bats may be the reservoir host for various coronaviruses 3,4 , whether SARS-CoV-2 has other hosts remains ambiguous. In this study, one coronavirus isolated from a Malayan pangolin showed 100%, 98.6%, 97.8% and 90.7% amino acid identity with SARS-CoV-2 in the E, M, N and S genes, respectively. In particular, the receptor-binding domain within the S protein of the Pangolin-CoV is virtually identical to that of SARS-CoV-2, with one noncritical amino acid difference. Results of comparative genomic analysis suggest that SARS-CoV-2 might have originated from the recombination of a Pangolin-CoV-like virus with a Bat-CoV-RaTG13-like virus. The Pangolin-CoV was detected in 17 of 25 Malayan pangolins analyzed. Infected pangolins showed clinical signs and histological changes, and circulating antibodies against Pangolin-CoV reacted with the S protein of SARS-CoV-2. The isolation of a coronavirus that is highly related to SARS-CoV-2 in pangolins suggests that they have the potential to act as the intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2. The newly identified coronavirus in the most-trafficked mammal could represent a future threat to public health if wildlife trade is not effectively controlled.As coronaviruses (CoVs) are common in mammals and birds 5 , we used the whole genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 (WHCV; GenBank accession No. MN908947) in a Blast search of SARS-relate CoV (SARSr-CoV) sequences in available mammalian and avian viromic, metagenomic, and transcriptomic data. This led to the identification of 34 highly related contigs in a set of pangolin viral metagenomes (Extended

The outbreak of 2019-nCoV in the central Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019 poses unprecedent public health challenges to both China and the rest world 1 . The new coronavirus shares high sequence identity to SARS-CoV and a newly identified bat coronavirus 2 . While bats may be the reservoir host for various coronaviruses, whether 2019-nCoV has other hosts is still ambiguous. In this study, one coronavirus isolated from Malayan pangolins showed 100%, 98.2%, 96.7% and 90.4% amino acid identity with 2019-nCoV in the E, M, N and S genes, respectively. In particular, the receptor-binding domain of the S protein of the Pangolin-CoV is virtually identical to that of 2019-nCoV, with one amino acid difference. Comparison of available genomes suggests 2019-nCoV might have originated from the recombination of a Pangolin-CoV-like virus with a Bat-CoV-RaTG13-like virus. Infected pangolins showed clinical signs and histopathological changes, and the circulating antibodies reacted with the S protein of 2019-nCoV.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract