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Review
. 2022 May 30:825:146443.
doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2022.146443. Epub 2022 Mar 22.

Mind the feline coronavirus: Comparison with SARS-CoV-2

Yong-Yu Gao  1 , Xiang-Yu Liang  1 , Qian Wang  2 , Shuang Zhang  1 , Han Zhao  1 , Kai Wang  3 , Gui-Xue Hu  4 , William J Liu  5 , Feng-Shan Gao  6
Affiliations
Review

Mind the feline coronavirus: Comparison with SARS-CoV-2

Yong-Yu Gao et al. Gene. .

Abstract

Both feline coronavirus (FCoV) and SARS-CoV-2 are coronaviruses that infect cats and humans, respectively. However, cats have been shown to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, and FCoV also had been shown to infect human. To elucidate the relationship between FCoV and SARS-CoV-2, we highlight the main characteristics of the genome, the receptor usage, and the correlation of the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of spike proteins in FCoV and SARS-CoV-2. It is demonstrated that FCoV and SARS-CoV-2 are closely related to the main characteristics of the genome, receptor usage, and RBD of spike proteins with similar furin cleavage sites. In particular, the affinity of the conserved feline angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (fACE2) receptor to the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 suggests that cats are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2. In addition, cross-species of coronaviruses between cats and humans or other domesticated animals are also discussed. This review sheds light on cats as potential intermediate hosts for SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and cross-species transmission or zoonotic infection of FCoV and SARS-CoV-2 between cats and humans was identified.

Keywords: Feline coronavirus; Receptor; Receptor-binding domain; SARS-CoV-2; Spike protein.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic representation of the structure and genome of FCoV and SARS-CoV-2. (A) The genome of FCoV ssRNA+. The FCoV genome is approximately 29 kb in size and contains 11 ORFs encoding four structural proteins (S, M, E and N) and seven nonstructural proteins (replicase proteins 1a and 1b and accessory proteins 3a, 3b, 3c, 7a and 7b). L, leader sequence. (B) The structure and proteins of FCoV. Spike (S), matrix (M), envelope (E) and nucleocapsid (N). (C) The structure of the S protein of FCoV. The S protein consists of two subunits: S1 (the receptor binding domain, RBD) and S2 (the fusion domain, FD). The S1 subunit also includes two functional domains: the N-terminal domain (NTD) and the C-terminal domain (CTD). The S2 subunit consists of a fusion peptide (FP), two heptapeptide repeats (HR1 and HR2), a transmembrane (TM) domain and an internal domain (ID). The arrows indicate the two activation sites, S1/S2 and S2′, and the linker sequence (L) region between S1/S2 and S2′. (D) Genome structure of SARS-CoV-2 ssRNA+. The SARS-CoV-2 genome is approximately 29.9 kb in size and contains 12 ORFs encoding four structural proteins (S, M, E and N) and eight nonstructural proteins (replicase proteins 1a and 1b and accessory proteins 3a, 6, 7a, 8a, 9b and 10). L, leader sequence. (E) The structure and proteins of SARS-CoV-2. Spike (S), matrix (M), envelope (E) and nucleocapsid (N). (F) The structure of the S protein of SARS-CoV-2. The description is the same as that in C.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The structure of SARS-CoV-2 bound to human ACE2 (hACE2) (Lan et al., 2020) and feline ACE2 (fACE2) (Wu et al., 2020). A, The structure of SARS-CoV-2 bound to hACE2 (6m0j). hACE2 is shown in green. The SARS-CoV-2 RBD core is shown in cyan and the receptor-binding motif in red. Disulfide bonds in the SARS-CoV-2 RBD are shown as sticks and indicated by arrows. The N-terminal helix of ACE2 responsible for binding is labeled. There is a Zn ion in the core of hACE2 molecule. B, The structure of SARS-CoV-2 bound to fACE2 (7c8d). fACE2 is shown in magenta. There is a Zn ion shown in the core of the fACE2 molecule, similar to hACE2, as shown in Figure A. The domains of SARS-CoV-2 RBD binding to fACE2 are shown in Figure A. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The sequence similarity between fACE2 (BAB40370.1) and hACE2 (NP_001034545.1) in amino acids and the key residues of fACE2 and hACE2. The homologous identity was 85.217%. The total amino acids for both fACE2 and hACE2 were 805. The 20 key residue sites of hACE2/fACE2 binding to the SARS-CoV-2 RBD were 19 (S), 24 (Q/L), 27 (T), 28 (F), 30 (D/E), 31 (K), 34 (H), 35 (E), 37 (E), 38 (D/E), 41 (Y), 42 (Q), 45 (L), 82 (M/T), 83 (Y), 330 (N), 353 (K), 354 (G), 355 (D) and 357 (R). The red asterisk denotes the retained residues, and the black asterisk denotes the mutated residues. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Schematic representation of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronavirus transmission among domestic animals.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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