Emerging coronaviruses: Genome structure, replication, and pathogenesis

Abstract

The recent emergence of a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which is causing an outbreak of unusual viral pneumonia in patients in Wuhan, a central city in China, is another warning of the risk of CoVs posed to public health. In this minireview, we provide a brief introduction of the general features of CoVs and describe diseases caused by different CoVs in humans and animals. This review will help understand the biology and potential risk of CoVs that exist in richness in wildlife such as bats.

The deadly coronaviruses: The 2003 SARS pandemic and the 2020 novel coronavirus epidemic in China

“…It is evident now that SARS-CoV-2 is capable of person-person transmission. We list the major pathogenic CoVs in Table 2 for better understanding of the pathogenesis of HCoV [87].…”

Coronavirus Disease 2019: Coronaviruses and Blood Safety

“…As the largest known RNA viruses, CoVs are further divided into four genera: α-CoVs, β-CoVs, γ-CoVs, and δ-CoVs [11], among which αand β-CoVs are able to infect mammals, whereas the other two genera can infect birds and could also infect mammals [12]. So far, seven coronaviruses have been found to infect humans and cause respiratory diseases.…”

Arguments in favour of remdesivir for treating SARS-CoV-2 infections

“…Currently, there are four genera: Alphacoronavirus, Betacoronavirus, Deltacoronavirus, and Gammacoronavirus. Before the current epidemic of COVID-19, there were six recognized human respiratory coronaviruses: HCoV-229E (Alphacoronavirus), HCoV-OC43 (Betacoronavirus), HCoV-NL63 (Alphacoronavirus), and HKU1 (Betacoronavirus), which often cause mild respiratory tract infection; in contrast, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV can lead to severe or even fatal lower respiratory tract disease [9]. The seventh human coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, belongs to the genus Betacoronavirus, which also contains SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV.…”