Li Wendong who entered the Institute of Zoology as a Ph.D. student in 2003, under the direction of Prof. Shi Zhengli from Wuhan Institute of Virus , CAS and Prof. Zhang Shuyi from Institute of Zoology, CAS, found three species from the genus Rhinolophus(horseshoe bats) demonstrated a high SARS-CoV antibody prevalence, Rhinolophus macrotis showed more than 70% antibody prevalence. The overall nucleotide sequence analysis showed that the identity between bat SARS Like CoV and human SARS-CoV was 92%. Institute of Zoology, CAS is the first research institution and Li Wendong is the first author.
Abstract of the published paper : Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) emerged in2002-3 in southern China. The origin of its etiological agent, the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), remains elusive. Here we report that species of bats are a natural host of coronaviruses closely related to those responsible for the SARS outbreak. These viruses, termed SARS-like coronaviruses (SL-CoV), display greater genetic variation than SARS-CoV isolated from humans or civets. The human and civet isolates of SARS-CoV nestle phylogenetically within the spectrum of SL-CoVs, indicating that the virus responsible for the SARS outbreak was a member of this coronavirus group.
The 5th International Conference on Rodent Biol...
