Another study confirms the natural origin of the new coronavirus!

On August 30, Qian Wenfeng's research group at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed a new traceability strategy and found that the origin of the new coronavirus was consistent with natural processes
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At present, the most similar to the new coronavirus genome sequence is RaTG13 isolated from the chrysanthemum bat.
The evolutionary divergence with the new coronavirus occurred about 50 years ago
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The researchers first confirmed the three prerequisites that need to be met for the application of this strategy: First, the cell environment is different between different hosts, which will produce host-specific mutations in the viral genome it carries; second, the virus The new mutations in the genome are mainly caused by the environment within the host cell; thirdly, the mutation characteristics accumulated by the virus during evolution are mainly determined by the new mutations
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After the researchers established the theoretical basis of this strategy, they constructed the evolutionary tree of SARS virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome virus, new coronavirus and 16 related coronaviruses
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In order to speculate on the evolutionary history of the new coronavirus, the researchers conducted a principal component analysis of the mutation characteristics of the new coronavirus during this period, and found that the mutation characteristics accumulated by the new coronavirus before the outbreak and the cell environment of wild bats (especially chrysanthemum bats) Highly consistent, which provides open, transparent and empirical data support for the natural origin of the new coronavirus
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Related paper information: http://doi.