Natural Transmission of Bat-like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Without Proline-Arginine-Arginine-Alanine Variants in Coronavirus Disease 2019 Patients.
Clin Infect Dis
; 73(2): e437-e444, 2021 07 15.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1315658
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) contains the furin cleavage Proline-Arginine-Arginine-Alanine (PRRA) motif in the S1/S2 region, which enhances viral pathogenicity but is absent in closely related bat and pangolin coronaviruses. Whether bat-like coronaviral variants without PRRA (∆PRRA) can establish natural infections in humans is unknown.METHODS:
Here, we developed a duplex digital polymerase chain reaction assay to examine ∆PRRA variants in Vero-E6-propagated isolates, human organoids, experimentally infected hamsters, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.RESULTS:
We found that SARS-CoV-2, as currently transmitting in humans, contained a quasispecies of wild-type, ∆PRRA variants and variants that have mutations upstream of the PRRA motif. Moreover, the ∆PRRA variants were readily detected despite being at a low intra-host frequency in transmitted founder viruses in hamsters and in COVID-19 patients, including in acute cases and a family cluster, with a prevalence rate of 52.9%.CONCLUSIONS:
Our findings demonstrate that bat-like SARS-CoV-2ΔPRRA not only naturally exists but remains transmissible in COVID-19 patients, which has significant implications regarding the zoonotic origin and natural evolution of SARS-CoV-2.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Chiroptera
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Observational study
Topics:
Variants
Limits:
Animals
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Clin Infect Dis
Journal subject:
Communicable Diseases
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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