Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Sep;39(9):1629-1635.
doi: 10.1007/s10096-020-03899-4. Epub 2020 Apr 24.

The genetic sequence, origin, and diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2

Huihui Wang  1 , Xuemei Li  1 , Tao Li  2   3 , Shubing Zhang  1 , Lianzi Wang  1 , Xian Wu  1 , Jiaqing Liu  1
Affiliations
Review

The genetic sequence, origin, and diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2

Huihui Wang et al. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis. 2020 Sep.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a new infectious disease that first emerged in Hubei province, China, in December 2019, which was found to be associated with a large seafood and animal market in Wuhan. Airway epithelial cells from infected patients were used to isolate a novel coronavirus, named the SARS-CoV-2, on January 12, 2020, which is the seventh member of the coronavirus family to infect humans. Phylogenetic analysis of full-length genome sequences obtained from infected patients showed that SARS-CoV-2 is similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and uses the same cell entry receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), as SARS-CoV. The possible person-to-person disease rapidly spread to many provinces in China as well as other countries. Without a therapeutic vaccine or specific antiviral drugs, early detection and isolation become essential against novel Coronavirus. In this review, we introduced current diagnostic methods and criteria for the SARS-CoV-2 in China and discuss the advantages and limitations of the current diagnostic methods, including chest imaging and laboratory detection.

Keywords: COVID-19; Diagnosis; Origin; SARS-CoV-2.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

References

    1. Weiss SR, Leibowitz JL. Coronavirus pathogenesis. Adv Virus Res. 2011;81:85–164. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-385885-6.00009-2. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Li F. Structure, function, and evolution of coronavirus spike proteins. Annu Rev Virol. 2016;3:237–261. doi: 10.1146/annurev-virology-110615-042301. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Tang Q, Song Y, Shi M, Cheng Y, Zhang W, Xia XQ. Inferring the hosts of coronavirus using dual statistical models based on nucleotide composition. Sci Rep. 2015;5:17155. doi: 10.1038/srep17155. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Su S, Wong G, Shi W, et al. Epidemiology, genetic recombination, and pathogenesis of coronaviruses. Trends Microbiol. 2016;24:490–502. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2016.03.003. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhu N, Zhang D, Wang W, et al. A novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:727–733. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2001017. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms

Substances