Viral, host and environmental factors that favor anthropozoonotic spillover of coronaviruses: An opinionated review, focusing on SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2
Date
2020Author
Gomes da Silva, Priscilla
Mesquita, João Rodrigo
Nascimento, Maria de São José
Martins Ferreira, Vanessa Andreia
Metadata
Show full item record
Documentos PDF
Imagenes y Videos
Abstract
Environmental factors play a key role in the zoonotic transmission of emerging
pathogenic viruses as mankind is constantly disturbing wildlife’s ecosystems usually by
cutting down forests to build human settlements or by catching wild animals for food,
which deprives the viruses of their natural hosts and gives them opportunity to infect
humans. In December 2019, a new coronavirus emerged from bats and was named
SARS-CoV-2 by the International Committee for Taxonomy of Viruses, and the disease
it causes named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization. Disease outbreaks such
as SARS in 2002-2003, MERS in 2012 and the current COVID-19 pandemic are the
result of higher mutation rates of coronaviruses and their unique capacity for genetic recombination, resulting in adaptations that make them more suitable to cross the
species barriers and infect other species. This ability for host switching and interspecies
infection is often attributed to the great diversity of these viruses, which is a result of
viral and host factors such as the low fidelity of their RNA-dependent RNA polymerase,
the high frequency of their homologous RNA recombination, and the adaptation of the
S protein to bind host receptors like the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in the
case of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, and dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DDP4) in MERSCoV. This review presents an overview of the zoonotic transmission of SARS, MERS
and COVID-19, focusing on the viral, host and environmental factors that favor the
spillover of these viruses into humans, as well as the biological and ecological factors
that make bats the perfect animal reservoir of infection for these viruses.
Link to resource
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141483Collections
Estadísticas Google Analytics
Comments
Respuesta Comentario Repositorio Expeditio
Gracias por tomarse el tiempo para darnos su opinión.