On March 5, Dong Chen, dean of Tsinghua University’s School of Medicine, said at a forum on “China and the World Economy under the Epidemic” that it is possible that C. neoformans could become a chronic disease in our population and coexist with humans for a long period of time, and on March 6, Zhang Qian from Wuhan University’s People’s Hospital, and Shi Zhengli, a researcher at Wuhan Institute of Virus Research, published a paper on the medRxiv website. website, also arguing that the presence of asymptomatic infections suggests that the new coronavirus may be latent in humans for a long time. Do we really have to live under the shadow of the Neocollins epidemic for a long time? Takayama, an associate professor at Nankai University’s School of Life Sciences, has a different view. Recently, Gaoshan and others published a preprint article “5’untranslated region barcode reveals 2019 new coronavirus virulence” on ResearchGate website, suggesting that the virulence of the new coronavirus is close to that of SARS, and it is difficult to coexist with humans for a long time, but we have to be highly vigilant against “new rivals” lurking in the wild animals. However, we should be highly vigilant about the “new rival” lurking in wildlife. New coronavirus virulence strong long-term lurking host difficult to Takayama introduced, coronavirus RNA coding region upstream of the “5’untranslated region” although not expressed, but its internal “ribosome entry site” (referred to as the first site) is Although the “5′ untranslated region” is not expressed, its internal “ribosome entry site” (the first site for short) can regulate the translation of most of the proteins of coronaviruses, and its function is crucial, which is a key factor affecting the virulence of the virus. Takayama et al. studied the genomes of more than 1,200 Beta coronaviruses, and found that all of them can be divided into four groups based on a special sequence within the first site, and each group of viruses is close in virulence and has almost identical special sequences. The first category includes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) viruses and HKU4 viruses in bats, which are the most virulent; SARS viruses and neocoronaviruses belong to the second category, which is only second in virulence; and the third category includes human coronaviruses such as OC43 and HKU1, which are even less virulent. “This particular sequence is like a barcode for viruses.” Takayama talked about how this categorization makes it very clear that there is a significant difference in the virulence of coronaviruses between the different classes. Further research found that the stem-loop structure adjacent to the upstream of the start codon of the first gene of these four classes of Beta coronaviruses showed exactly four different patterns. Alpine believes that, according to the available data, the first two types of viruses have been found to have fewer species and host species, probably because the virulence is so strong that it is difficult for the viruses to coexist with the host for a long period of time and become extinct, while the third type of viruses are weaker in virulence, and after a long period of evolution, it is possible to obtain the host adaptability to realize the long-term existence of the viruses in the hosts. The “barcode” sequence is highly conserved and not easy to mutate, and it is unlikely that the new coronavirus will evolve into a class III virus. According to its classification and virulence, as long as human beings take strong preventive and control measures, it is likely to go extinct. Virus can be categorized tube potential threat to be vigilant Takayama told Science and Technology Daily reporter, according to the “bar code” on the classification of coronavirus, can be simple, rapid estimate of the virulence of unknown viruses, laying the groundwork for the virus classification management, so that the future prevention and control of more targeted. For example, HKU4 and HKU5 carried by bats and HKU31 carried by hedgehogs belong to the first category of coronaviruses, which have not yet been reported to be infecting people, but should still be included in the key monitoring and research objectives. “In addition, the presence of coronaviruses highly similar to the new coronaviruses has recently been reported in pangolin.” Takayama talked about how although the pangolin may not be an intermediate host for the new coronavirus because the two viruses do not share the same variable translational typing and the pangolin coronavirus genome does not have the Furin cleavage site that is unique to the new coronavirus. However, human beings still need to pay attention to the potential threat of this virus, which was found to be a class II virus with an estimated virulence at the same level as that of SARS virus and neocoronavirus. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the research and monitoring of wild animals such as pangolins that carry dangerous viruses. “All in all, we need to be highly vigilant against the more virulent Category 1 and 2 viruses that have been discovered and will emerge in the future.” In contrast, category 3 viruses, which are diverse and have a wide range of hosts, have the potential for small periodic outbreaks, but are less virulent and less threatening, Takayama noted. “Classification of viruses according to ‘barcode’ sequences is not limited to Beta coronaviruses.” Takayama said that we applied this to the analysis of influenza A virus, and the results were highly consistent with the serotype classification routinely used, with each of the 12 HA subtypes and 8 NA subtypes of the virus having a one-to-one “barcode”. Gaoshan emphasized that our current research is mainly based on bioinformatics analysis of the viral genome, still need a lot of biological experiments to confirm. Source: Science and Technology Daily