STUDY ON THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN A NOVEL CORONAVIRUS AND THE SARS PATHOGEN / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To determine the causative association between a newly isolated coronavirus and the current epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) Methods Coronavirus was isolated from the samples of patients with SARS by cell culture Immunofluorescence assay and neutralization test were used to detect the antibodies in serum of SARS patients against newly isolated coronavirus, in order to analyze and determine the association between coronavirus and SARS pathogen Results The antibodies against the novel coronavirus could be detected in 99 of 113 sera from clinically diagnosed SARS patients The results of 10 pairs of double serum detection showed that, antibody titers in the late phase were significantly higher than those in the acute phase, and a highest increase by 128 folds was being found. The neutralization test showed that the antibodies from SARS patients' sera could neutralize the novel coronavirus Conclusion The newly isolated coronavirus was closely associated with and possibly the key pathogen of SARS