This research adds weight to the natural origins theory but also indicates there are a lot of viruses in the wild that could make the same jump into humans as Covid has.
Virus-hunters have narrowed in on the closest relative yet to Sars-CoV-2, the pathogen behind the Covid-19 pandemic, in bat caves in Laos.
The research is the latest piece of evidence to point towards the pandemic having natural origins, rather than being caused by a laboratory leak, including a
study last week which suggested tens of thousands of people may be infected by bat coronaviruses every year.
The
new paper, published as a pre-print by the French Institute Pasteur and the University of Laos, studied coronaviruses found in bats in four different limestone caves in Laos between July 2020 and January 2021.
One expert said that key parts of the virus were as similar to the original Sars-CoV-2 as some of the variants of concern
www.telegraph.co.uk
Coronaviruses with a SARS-CoV-2-like receptor-binding domain allowing ACE2-mediated entry into human cells isolated from bats of Indochinese peninsula
Abstract
The animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 is unknown despite reports of various SARS-CoV-2-related viruses in Asian Rhinolophus bats, including the closest virus from R. affinis, RaTG13. Several studies have suggested the involvement of pangolin coronaviruses in SARS-CoV-2 emergence. SARS-CoV-2 presents a mosaic genome, to which different progenitors contribute. The spike sequence determines the binding affinity and accessibility of its receptor-binding domain (RBD) to the cellular angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor and is responsible for host range. SARS-CoV-2 progenitor bat viruses genetically close to SARS-CoV-2 and able to enter human cells through a human ACE2 pathway have not yet been identified, though they would be key in understanding the origin of the epidemics. Here we show that such viruses indeed circulate in cave bats living in the limestone karstic terrain in North Laos, within the Indochinese peninsula. We found that the RBDs of these viruses differ from that of SARS-CoV-2 by only one or two residues, bind as efficiently to the hACE2 protein as the SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan strain isolated in early human cases, and mediate hACE2-dependent entry into human cells, which is inhibited by antibodies neutralizing SARS-CoV-2. None of these bat viruses harbors a furin cleavage site in the spike. Our findings therefore indicate that bat-borne SARS-CoV-2-like viruses potentially infectious for humans circulate in Rhinolophus spp. in the Indochinese peninsula.
The animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 is unknown despite reports of various SARS-CoV-2-related viruses in Asian Rhinolophus bats, including the closest virus from R. affinis, RaTG13. Several studies have suggested the involvement of pangolin coronaviruses in SARS-CoV-2 emergence. SARS-CoV-2 presents...
www.researchsquare.com
Well the famous Chinese women expert in Coronavirus at the Wuhan institute (built by PAsteur Institute) famously said that she had identified something like 1800 virus in bats only - potentially lethals one.
So I'm not really surprise by these developments.
Hint: the more we screw the environement; the more we piss bats deep in their caves; the higher the probability some angry bat bites a human and started the entire nightmare all over again.
That's the bottom line.
Nota bene: the AIDS virus existed in apes since 10 000 years or more. What's more, it has been proven it tried to screw humans via crossing the species barier, not ONE LUCKY time (1920, Congo) but many times BEFORE.
So why did the earlier barriers crossing did not led to worldwide AIDS pandemic as the one we presently endure ?
Well, because the AIDS virus literally could not get "out of the ghetto" and start a worlwide pandemic.
The unfortunate people who were victims of those early AIDS remained isolated deep in the African forrest.
So why did the 1920 barrier crossing led to, 100 years later, 100 million people infected worlwide ?
Because that brand of simian AIDS founds an escape from African jungle toward the entire world.
Step 1 - French / Anglo / Belgian colonization led to a massive prostitution explosion
Step 2 Colonial doctors vaccinated people with tainted syringes, unknowwingly spreading AIDS
Step 3 once Congo deeply infected, whacky Mobutu asked criminal Duvallier in Haiti for doctors in the early 60's. These poor guys got AIDS out of Africa, to Haiti. And from there, to New York as early as 1971 via sexual tourism.
Step 4 Duvallier best friend Luckner Cambronne pillaged Port of prince poor people's blood - 5 dollars 1L - for his own lucrative blood trafficking business... spreading AIDS even faster across the world.
Bottom line: we messed up apes habitat deep in the african jungle via colonization, and got AIDS as result.
"Bats in asian caves" are similar. IF we go screwing their natural habitat deep down caves, we will get coronavirus aplenty.