Diversity of coronaviruses in bats: insights into origin of SARS coronavirus

Background: Although the finding of SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in caged palm civets suggested that wild animals are the origin of SARS-CoV, subsequent studies suggested that civet may have served only as an amplification host. In 2005, we identified a coronavirus closely related to SARS-CoV (bat-SARS-CoV) in Chinese horseshoe bats. However, it remains to be determined if bat-SARS-CoV or other coronaviruses in bats are the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV.link_to_subscribed_fulltex