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Review
. 2016 Feb:16:55-62.
doi: 10.1016/j.coviro.2016.01.004. Epub 2016 Jan 29.

Cross host transmission in the emergence of MERS coronavirus

Chantal Bem Reusken  1 , V Stalin Raj  1 , Marion P Koopmans  1 , Bart L Haagmans  2
Affiliations
Review

Cross host transmission in the emergence of MERS coronavirus

Chantal Bem Reusken et al. Curr Opin Virol. 2016 Feb.

Abstract

Coronaviruses (CoVs) able to infect humans emerge through cross-host transmission from animals. There is substantial evidence that the recent Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV outbreak is fueled by zoonotic transmission from dromedary camels. This is largely based on the fact that closely related viruses have been isolated from this but not any other animal species. Given the widespread geographical distribution of dromedaries found seropositive for MERS-CoV, continued transmission may likely occur in the future. Therefore, a further understanding of the cross host transmission of MERS-CoV is needed to limit the risks this virus poses to man.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Phylogenetic tree based on a DPP4 fragment containing the S1 binding region (residues 246–504 of 16 different species). Sequence alignment was performed by using ClustalW in the MEGA5.0 software package (www.megasoftware.net), and the trees were constructed by using the neighbor-joining method with P distances (gap/missing data treatment; complete deletion) and 1000 bootstrap replicates as in MEGA version 5.0. Known MERS-CoV susceptible species (green), non-susceptible species (red) and unknown (black).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Phylogenetic analysis of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronaviruses (MERSCoVs). Complete genome sequences of human and camel MERS-CoV isolates were aligned by using ClustalW, and a phylogenetic tree was constructed by using the PhyML method in Seaview 4 (all 3 software packages can be found at http://pbil.univ-lyon1.fr/software/seaview) and was visualized in FigTree version 1.3.1 (http://tree.bio.ed.ac.uk/software/figtree/). Values at branches show the result of the approximate likelihood ratio; values <0.70 are not shown. MERS-CoV isolates from dromedary camels are shown in camel silhouette and the human MERS-CoV isolates are shown in human silhouette. Scale bar indicates nucleotide substitutions per site.
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