| Title | Close Relationship Between SARS-Coronavirus and Group 2 Coronavirus |
|---|---|
| Author | Ok Ju Kim1, Dong Hun Lee1,2, and Chan Hee Lee1,2,* |
| Address | 1Division of Life Sciences, 2Research Institute for Biotechnology, Chungbuk National University,Cheongju, Chungbuk 361-763, Republic of Korea, |
| Bibliography | Journal of Microbiology, 44(1),83-91, 2006, |
| DOI | |
| Key Words | SARS, coronavirus, phylogeny |
| Abstract | The sudden appearance and potential lethality of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in humans has resulted in a focusing of new attention on the determination of both its origins and evolution. The relationship existing between SARS-CoV and other groups of coronaviruses was determined via analyses of phylogenetic trees and comparative genomic analyses of the coronavirus genes: polymerase (Orf1ab), spike (S), envelope (E), membrane (M) and nucleocapsid (N). Although the coronaviruses are traditionally classed into 3 groups, with SARS-CoV forming a 4th group, the phylogenetic position and origins of SARS-CoV remain a matter of some controversy. Thus, we conducted extensive phylogenetic analyses of the genes common to all coronavirus groups, using the Neighbor-joining, Maximum-likelihood, and Bayesian methods. Our data evidenced largely identical topology for all of the obtained phylogenetic trees, thus supporting the hypothesis that the relationship existing between SARS-CoV and group 2 coronavirus is a monophyletic one. Additional comparative genomic studies, including sequence similarity and protein secondary structure analyses, suggested that SARS-CoV may bear a closer relationship with group 2 than with the other coronavirus groups. Although our data strongly suggest that group 2 coronaviruses are most closely related with SARS-CoV, further and more detailed analyses may provide us with an increased amount of information regarding the origins and evolution of the coronaviruses, most notably SARS-CoV. |
| Download PDF | 13 JM2005-139.pdf |