Abstract
Due to their need for living cells, viruses have developed adaptive evolutionary strategies to survive and perpetuate in reservoir hosts that play a crucial role in the ecology of emerging pathogens. Pathogenic and potentially pandemic betacoronaviruses arose in humans in 2002 (SARS-CoV, disappeared in July 2003), 2012 (MERS-CoV, still circulating in Middle East areas), and 2019 (SARS-CoV-2, causing the current global pandemic). As universally recognized, bats host ancestors of the above-mentioned zoonotic viruses. However, hedgehogs have been recently identified in Europe and Asia as possible reservoirs of MERS-CoV-like strains classified as Erinaceus coronavirus (EriCoV). To elucidate the evolution and genetics of EriCoVs, NGS (next generation sequencing) and Sanger sequencing were used to examine fecal samples collected in Northern Italy in 2018/2019 from 12 hedgehogs previously found EriCoV-positive by RT-PCR. By sequence analysis, eight complete EriCoV genomes, obtained by NGS, showed a high phylogenetic correlation with EriCoV strains previously reported in Eurasia. Interestingly, eight viral strains presented an additional ORF encoding for the CD200 ortholog located between the genes encoding for the Spike and the ORF3a proteins. The CD200 ortholog sequences were closely similar to the host CD200 protein but varying among EriCoVs. The result, confirmed by Sanger sequencing, demonstrates for the first time that CoVs can acquire host genes potentially involved in the immune-modulatory cascade and possibly enabling the virus to escape the host defence.
Highlights
Coronaviruses (CoVs), classified as belonging to the Coronaviridae family, are a heterogeneous group of viruses with RNA (26–32 kb in length) single strand genomes which have been considered for a long time to be restricted to animals, in which that can cause respiratory, gastrointestinal, and other symptoms of variable severity [1]
Since 2002, three highly virulent strains classified into two subgenera (Sarbecovirus and Merbecovirus) of the Betacoronavirus (Beta-CoV) genus have caused severe respiratory diseases leading to thousands of infections and deaths worldwide
To determine the evolutionary relationship with other merbecoviruses, 12 fecal samples collected from Western European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) previously tested positive for CoVs [16] were subject to NGS to obtain complete genome sequences
Summary
Coronaviruses (CoVs), classified as belonging to the Coronaviridae family, are a heterogeneous group of viruses with RNA (26–32 kb in length) single strand genomes which have been considered for a long time to be restricted to animals, in which that can cause respiratory, gastrointestinal, and other symptoms of variable severity [1]. CoVs are the second cause of respiratory disease causing. Since 2002, three highly virulent strains classified into two subgenera (Sarbecovirus and Merbecovirus) of the Betacoronavirus (Beta-CoV) genus have caused severe respiratory diseases leading to thousands of infections and deaths worldwide. In 2012, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), belonging to the Merbecovirus subgenus, was first reported in The Arabian Peninsula where it still circulates [3,4]
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