Researchers find the closest related virus to SARS-COV-2.
- ByStartupStory | September 28, 2021
Researchers from the Pasteur Institute in France and the University of Laos captured 645 bats from limestone caves in northern Laos and screened them for viruses related to SARS-CoV-2 in a new study. BANAL-52, BANAL-103, and BANAL-236, which infected horseshoe bats, all have a genome that shares more than 95 percent of its overall sequence with SARS-CoV-2.
Nature News reported that BANAL-52, one of the viruses, was 96.8% identical to SARS-CoV-2. Thus, this virus is genetically closer to SARS-CoV-2 than any other virus. Previously, the closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2 was RaTG13, which was found in horseshoe bats in 2013 and shares 96.1 percent of its genome with SARS-CoV-2, Nature News reported.
Additionally, all three viruses are more similar to SARS-CoV-2 in a critical part of their genomes – called the receptor-binding domain (RBD) – than other known viruses. It is the RBD that binds to the host cells. In SARS-CoV-2, the RBD binds to a receptor called ACE2 on human cells, and the virus then uses this receptor to enter the cell.
According to the new study, BANAL-52, BANAL-103, and BANAL-236 are capable of binding to ACE2 and entering human cells by using it as a receptor. RaTG13, which has been proposed as an ancestor of SARS-CoV-2 found in bats, has been unable to achieve this so far, according to researchers.
The findings, which were published on the preprint server Research Square on September 17, add to the evidence that SARS-CoV-2 had a natural origin, rather than escaped from a lab.
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