PubMed:31994738 JSONTXT 19 Projects

The 2019-new coronavirus epidemic: evidence for virus evolution. There is worldwide concern about the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV as a global public health threat. In this article, we provide a preliminary evolutionary and molecular epidemiological analysis of this new virus. A phylogenetic tree has been built using the 15 available whole genome sequence of 2019-nCoV and 12 whole genome sequences of 2019-nCoV and 12 highly similar whole genome sequences available in gene bank (5 from SARS, 2 from MERS and 5 from Bat SARS-like Coronavirus). Fast Unconstrained Bayesian Approximation (FUBAR) analysis shows that the Nucleocapsid and the Spike Glycoprotein have some sites under positive pressure while homology modelling revealed some molecular and structural differences between the viruses. The phylogenetic tree showed that 2019.nCoV significantly clustered with Bat SARS-like Coronavirus sequence isolated in 2015, whereas structural analysis revealed mutation in Spike Glycoprotein and nucleocapsid protein. From these results, 2019-nCoV could be considered as a coronavirus distinct from SARS virus, probably transmitted from bats or another host where conferred its ability to infect humans. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.