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. 2005 Oct 28;310(5748):676-9.
doi: 10.1126/science.1118391. Epub 2005 Sep 29.

Bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-like coronaviruses

Wendong Li  1 , Zhengli Shi, Meng Yu, Wuze Ren, Craig Smith, Jonathan H Epstein, Hanzhong Wang, Gary Crameri, Zhihong Hu, Huajun Zhang, Jianhong Zhang, Jennifer McEachern, Hume Field, Peter Daszak, Bryan T Eaton, Shuyi Zhang, Lin-Fa Wang
Affiliations

Bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-like coronaviruses

Wendong Li et al. Science. .

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) emerged in 2002 to 2003 in southern China. The origin of its etiological agent, the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), remains elusive. Here we report that species of bats are a natural host of coronaviruses closely related to those responsible for the SARS outbreak. These viruses, termed SARS-like coronaviruses (SL-CoVs), display greater genetic variation than SARS-CoV isolated from humans or from civets. The human and civet isolates of SARS-CoV nestle phylogenetically within the spectrum of SL-CoVs, indicating that the virus responsible for the SARS outbreak was a member of this coronavirus group.

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