Tackling Rumors of a Suspicious Origin of nCoV2019

[fuyutao]

@giorgio.matassi

Yes, the S1/S2 cleavage site is present in other Coronaviruses (eg. ref to Table1-Fig2, in Coutard et al., 2020, Antiviral Res, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.antiviral.2020.104742 ). But not quite the same site as in 2019-nCoV, as pointed out in Walls et al. (Cell 2020, 180, 1–12).

The PRRA site is present in certain Feline Infectious Peritonitis coronavirus strains, between S1 and S2.

Multiple peer-reviewed articles have shown that cats are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, which raises an interesting question - could a SARS-CoV-2 ancestor without PRRA infect cats and recombine with FIPV to acquire PRRA? Could this be tested experimentally?