AKURAT.CO, The search for the origin of the COVID-19 virus has sparked a surprising discovery for a team of Chinese scientists. The reason is, in their new study, instead of finding the source of COVID-19, the researchers found 24 new coronaviruses that have not been identified in bats.
Citing Asia One to SCMP, the surprising discovery was just released on bioRxiv.org on Monday (15/3) today. In the report, researchers also revealed how the 24 new coronaviruses, all of them were found within a radius of less than 4 km from southwest China. It also stated how four of them were linked to the strain that causes COVID-19.
Then of the four types, one of them is said to carry the backbone of the genome that is arguably the closest to SARS-CoV-2. Even so, once again, there hasn’t been a single type of virus that appears to be the direct ancestor of the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, according to researchers.
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The results of this study came from a research team led by Professor Shi Weifong of Shandong First Medical University. Shi and his group are listed as one of the teams funded by Beijing to collect and study bat viruses in China.
Even so, scientists from other countries, including Australia, reportedly participated in field visits and data analysis. Later in the process, Shi and his team collected a bat virus strain in a remote area in Yunnan province. In that area, between May 2019-November 2020, Shi and his team managed to collect more than 400 samples, including feces, urine, and oral swabs.
Only then did Shi find 24 new coronaviruses, and one of them was RpYN06. According to Shi, this RpYN06 has a genome similarity of up to 94.5 percent with SARS-CoV-2.
The discovery of RpYN06 suddenly reminded scientists of RaTG13. As is known, RaTG13, which was found in Yunnan several years ago, also has a high level of similarity to SARS-CoV-2. The similarity of the genome is even said to reach up to 96 percent.
Even so, Shi emphasized that both RaTG13 and RpYN06, both have different spike proteins from the COVID-19 virus. However, in other respects, RpYN06 appears to be more closely related to SARS-CoV-2.
“The diversity of the viral genome has likely been underestimated,” said Shi and his team.
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