Protein structure and sequence re-analysis of 2019-nCoV genome does not indicate snakes as its intermediate host or the unique similarity between its spike protein insertions and HIV-1
By
CHENGXIN ZHANG,
Wei Zheng,
Xiaoqiang Huang,
Eric W Bell,
Xiaogen Zhou,
Yang Zhang
Posted 08 Feb 2020
bioRxiv DOI: 10.1101/2020.02.04.933135
(published DOI: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.0c00129)
As the infection of 2019-nCoV coronavirus is quickly developing into a global pneumonia epidemic, careful analysis of its transmission and cellular mechanisms is sorely needed. In this report, we re-analyzed the computational approaches and findings presented in two recent manuscripts by Ji et al. (https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.25682) and by Pradhan et al. (https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871), which concluded that snakes are the intermediate hosts of 2019-nCoV and that the 2019-nCoV spike protein insertions shared a unique similarity to HIV-1. Results from our re-implementation of the analyses, built on larger-scale datasets using state-of-the-art bioinformatics methods and databases, do not support the conclusions proposed by these manuscripts. Based on our analyses and existing data of coronaviruses, we concluded that the intermediate hosts of 2019-nCoV are more likely to be mammals and birds than snakes, and that the novel insertions observed in the spike protein are naturally evolved from bat coronaviruses.
Download data
- Downloaded 5,502 times
- Download rankings, all-time:
- Site-wide: 2,789
- In bioinformatics: 186
- Year to date:
- Site-wide: 34,289
- Since beginning of last month:
- Site-wide: 44,123
Altmetric data
Downloads over time
Distribution of downloads per paper, site-wide
PanLingua
News
- 27 Nov 2020: The website and API now include results pulled from medRxiv as well as bioRxiv.
- 18 Dec 2019: We're pleased to announce PanLingua, a new tool that enables you to search for machine-translated bioRxiv preprints using more than 100 different languages.
- 21 May 2019: PLOS Biology has published a community page about Rxivist.org and its design.
- 10 May 2019: The paper analyzing the Rxivist dataset has been published at eLife.
- 1 Mar 2019: We now have summary statistics about bioRxiv downloads and submissions.
- 8 Feb 2019: Data from Altmetric is now available on the Rxivist details page for every preprint. Look for the "donut" under the download metrics.
- 30 Jan 2019: preLights has featured the Rxivist preprint and written about our findings.
- 22 Jan 2019: Nature just published an article about Rxivist and our data.
- 13 Jan 2019: The Rxivist preprint is live!