Scientist Ben Hu, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,
and his colleagues, spent five years studying the SARS virus (Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome), found in multiple species of bats after the SARS pandemic
in 2002. The pandemic broke out in southern China, killing hundreds of people in
many countries. The outback was traced back to horseshoe bats that were
infected by the SARS virus. The scientists hypothesized that the bats then
directly spread the disease to humans, or it was indirectly transmitted to
humans by animals that they purchased at markets. So, Ben Hu and his team began
studying all of the species of horseshoe bats that live in a single cave in
Yunnan Province, China. The researchers discovered that there were 11 new
strains of the SARS virus, and sequenced their full genomes to uncover their
evolutionary relationships.
Genomic
analysis revealed that the 11 newly identified bat strains, as well as several
strains identified in a previous study of the same bat cave, contained all the
essential genetic building blocks of the human SARS coronavirus. Essentially,
they discovered that the viruses could be transmitted to humans. In some of the
strains, portions of the S gene showed high genetic similarity to the same
regions found in the SARS coronavirus genome. This analysis led the researchers
to believe that recombination between SARS strains that are non-transferable to
humans led to a strain that can be directly transmitted to humans, similar to the
SARS coronavirus. Their researchers also led them to find that a few of the new
strains can enter human cells via the same cellular receptor employed by SARS
coronavirus. Thus, some of the bats is the cave have SARS strains that can be
directly transmitted to humans.
I
think that this research is very important to people living in areas around
China because studying the SARS virus is a crucial first step to creating a
vaccine or curing the disease in humans. Keeping an eye on the cave with many
new strains of the SARS virus is also very important because researches need to
know if any new species of horseshoe bats are introduced to the population. In
addition, the scientists need to know if any of the bats regularly leave the
cave in order to figure out if the bats could potentially be endangering
humans. It is very interesting that recombination led to new strains of the
SARS virus, but is potentially deadly to the people of China and surrounding
areas.
I think it is good that they took all of the sequences of the newly found bat strains. Maybe they will be able to see how the virus mutated over time to change and become more adaptive to the bats. Maybe someday they will figure out how it's evolutionary process and will be able to prevent it.
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