A transmission electron micrograph of a virus. The NIAID Integrated Research Facility is located in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Credit: NIAID.
According to new research published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, some ancestral rodents may have had repeated infections with coronaviruses, leading them to acquire tolerance or resistance to the pathogens. The researchers think that modern rodents may be carriers of the same viruses as the ones that caused the 2003-2003 outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
The virus that causes COVID-19 is a zoonotic one, which means it jumped from a non-human animal to a human. The Chinese Horseshoe bats are a host of many Viruses like the one that caused the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Identifying other animals that have adapted tolerance mechanisms to coronaviruses is important for awareness of potential viral reservoirs that can spread new pathogens to humans.
King and Singh performed an evolutionary analysis of the ACE2 receptors, used by the SARS viruses, in order to gain entry into mammals. The primate's sites of the ACE2 receptor are known to be involved in the binding of viruses. Rodents had a higher rate of evolution in these places. The results show that the infections of the coronaviruses have not been evolutionary drivers in primate history, but that some rodents have been exposed to them for a long time.
"Our study suggests that ancestral rodents may have had repeated infections with coronaviruses and have acquired some form of tolerance or resistance to coronaviruses as a result of these infections," the authors say. "This raises the possibility that some modern rodents may be carriers of coronaviruses, including those that have not been discovered yet."
King, Singh, and others have analyzed the levels of adaptation to coronaviruses. There is a journal called the PLoS Comput Biol.
The journal contains information about Computational Biology.
The study suggests that rodents could be carriers of coronaviruses.
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