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Coronavirus Epidemics and the Current COVID-19 Pandemic
Published in Debmalya Barh, Kenneth Lundstrom, COVID-19, 2022
Aparna Bhardwaj, Prateek Kumar, Shivani Krishna Kapuganti, Vladimir N. Uversky, Rajanish Giri
Coronaviruses cause a wide range of diseases such as gastroenteritis, encephalitis, pneumonia-like upper respiratory tract illnesses, and multiple organ failures involving the lungs and kidneys in a number of birds and some mammals [1]. Coronaviruses are enveloped viruses with a positive sense single-stranded RNA genome and club-like spikes that protrude from their surface [1, 2]. They are members of the Nidovirales order, including the Arteriviridae, Coronoviridae, Mesoviridae, and Roniviridae families. Coronavirinae and Torovirinae are subfamilies of the family Coronoviridae [2]. Coronaviridae is further subdivided into four genera: alpha, beta, gamma, and delta coronaviruses. The former two genera affect mammals, and the latter two are mainly responsible for disease in birds and fish, with some exceptions such as porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV), which belongs to the deltacoronavirus genus, but infects mammals [2, 3].
Current Epidemiological and Clinical Features of COVID-19; a Global Perspective From China
Published in William C. Cockerham, Geoffrey B. Cockerham, The COVID-19 Reader, 2020
Huilan Tu, Sheng Tu, Shiqi Gao, Anwen Shao, Jifang Sheng
Coronaviruses were first described by Tyrell and Bynoe in 1966, who isolated the viruses from patients suffering from the common cold.6 Tyrell and Bynoe called them coronaviruses because they are spherical virions with a core shell and surface projections resembling a solar corona.7 Coronaviruses are members of the subfamily Coronavirinae in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales. Members of this subfamily were genetically classified into four major genera: Alphacoronavirus, Betacoronavirus, Gammacoronavirus, and Deltacoronavirus.8 Alphacoronaviruses and betacoronaviruses infect only mammals and usually cause respiratory illness in humans and gastroenteritis in animals. The gammacoronaviruses and deltacoronaviruses predominantly infect birds, but some can also infect mammals.9 Six types of coronavirus have been identified in humans (HCoVs), including HCoV-NL63, HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43, HCoV-HKU1, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV. The first two belong to the Alphacoronavirus genus and the latter four to the genus Betacoronavirus.10 SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV can cause severe respiratory syndrome in humans, while the other four human coronaviruses induce only mild upper respiratory diseases in immunocompetent hosts.11,12 Coronaviruses did not attract worldwide attention until the 2003 SARS epidemic, followed by the 2012 MERS outbreak and, most recently, the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Rehabilitation of patients with COVID-19
Published in Expert Review of Respiratory Medicine, 2020
Tiantian Sun, Liyun Guo, Fei Tian, Tiantian Dai, Xiaohong Xing, Junqing Zhao, Qiang Li
Of the four genera in the coronavirus subfamily [1], Alphacoronavirus and Betacoronavirus infect mammals, and Gammacoronavirus and Deltacoronavirus mostly infect birds [2]. Human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63) and human coronavirus 229E (HCoV-229E) both cause disease in humans and belong to the genus Alphacoronavirus. Human coronavirus OC43 (HCoV-OC43), human coronavirus HKU1 (HCoV-HKU1), severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) belong to the Betacoronavirus genus, of which HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43, HCoV-NL63, and HCoV-HKU1 are viruses responsible for common colds [3]. Some studies have shown a close relationship between SARS-CoV-2 and the SARS coronavirus that infects bats and to SARS-CoV. However, the change in the minimum receptor-binding domain of the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 is more significant, thus enhancing the virus’s ability to spread [4,5,6,7]. It has been reported that the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 is more likely to bind to the surface protein of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). Compared with the SARS virus, the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 has a 10–20 times higher affinity for ACE2, which is mainly distributed throughout the lungs, heart, kidneys, testes, and digestive tract [8,9]. SARS-CoV-2 transmission is mainly via droplets, followed by aerosol and fecal-oral transmission [10,11].
Broad-spectrum coronavirus antiviral drug discovery
Published in Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery, 2019
Allison L. Totura, Sina Bavari
Highly pathogenic coronaviruses SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV recently emerged into human populations, but other human coronaviruses (HCoVs) including HCoV-OC43, HCoV-229E, HCoV-NL63, and HCoV-HKU1 are estimated to have circulated in human populations for hundreds of years, causing mild respiratory illness to which approximately 5–30% of ‘common colds’ are attributed [7,8]. Within the Coronaviridae family (order Nidovirales) four genera are recognized: alphacoronavirus, betacoronavirus, gammacoronavirus, and deltacoronavirus. The six HCoVs (Table 1) currently identified belong to the genera alphacoronavirus (HCoV-229E and HCoV-NL63) and betacoronavirus (SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, HCoV-OC43, and HCoV-HKU1). Gammacoronaviruses and deltacoronaviruses have no known viruses that infect humans, but contain important agricultural pathogens of livestock. Epizootic coronaviruses in animals cause a wide range of disease signs resulting from respiratory, enteric, and neurological tissue tropism. Although HCoVs cause primarily respiratory symptoms, the potential for a wide range of severe disease symptoms in humans caused by infection by future emergent coronaviruses cannot be excluded. Despite the severity and diversity of coronavirus disease signs and symptoms affecting a large number of important livestock species as well as humans, there are no proven therapies that specifically target CoVs.
Moonlighting in drug metabolism
Published in Drug Metabolism Reviews, 2021
Membrane ectopeptidases, including APN, are entry targets for human coronaviruses (Bosch et al. 2014). The alphacoronaviruses human HCoV-229E, transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV), and porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) target APN (Li et al. 2018; Wang, Liu, et al. 2018); TGEV infects a range of species, which is attributed to the expression of highly conserved APN in susceptible species. TGEV binds to porcine APN at a site distant from the active site and virus binding locks the conformation of APN in a catalytically inactive form (Santiago et al. 2017). An N-linked glycan in APN may serve to facilitate the interaction of viral domain B of the spike protein (Reguera et al. 2012; Li et al. 2018).