"This outbreak highlights the ongoing capacity of viral spill-over from animals to cause severe disease in humans," the authors of the second study wrote.
A mysterious intermediary species
Experts haven't yet confirmed the animal species that enabled the new coronavirus to spread from bats to people, however.
"We still do not know whether another species served as an intermediate host to amplify the virus (and possibly even to bring it to the market), nor what species that host might have been," Michael Skinner, a virologist at Imperial College London who was not affiliated with either Nature study, said in a press release about the research.
But Shi and her colleagues' new study offers some clues.
The new coronavirus' genetic information indicates that it can bind to the ACE2 receptor in people, as well as to that same receptor in bats, pigs, and civets — a weasel-like mammal that served as the intermediary species for SARS.
That information, coupled with the virus' similarity to other bat coronaviruses, suggests these three species as possible intermediaries.
"Direct transmission of CoVs from bats to people is also theoretically possible," according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
On January 22, a group of scientists who edit the Journal of Medical Virology suggested the intermediary species in the coronavirus outbreak could be the Chinese cobra. But Skinner said this new information about its genome indicates this virus is "not really compatible with some of the more exotic hosts that were considered earlier in the epidemic."
The only way to be sure about where the virus came from, however, is to take DNA samples from animals sold at the Huanan wet market and from bats in the area.
- Read more about the Wuhan virus:
- Everything we know about the deadly Wuhan virus sweeping across China
- Health experts issued an ominous warning about a coronavirus pandemic 3 months ago. The virus in that simulation could kill 65 million people.
- Wuhan, China, and at least 15 other cities have been quarantined as China attempts to halt the spread of the coronavirus. That's about 50 million people on lockdown.
- The Wuhan coronavirus has spread to at least 25 countries. Here's how to protect yourself while traveling.
- Experts think the Wuhan coronavirus jumped from bats to snakes to people. Bats have been the source of at least 4 pandemics.
