China finds new coronovirus with potential to infiltrate human cells

Beijing: Virologists in China have discovered a new bat coronavirus that might cause animal-to-human transmission, just like Covid-19 did five years ago. The new virus called HKU5-CoV-2 was found by a team of virologists led by Shi Zhengli, the famed scientist known as "Batwoman" for her lifetime work in coronaviruses, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

According to Chinese researchers, the new virus has similarities to SARS-CoV-2, which caused the pandemic that caused the entire globe to stay still and took tens of lakhs of lives. Researchers said that the new virus can infiltrate human cells called ACE2 the same way Covid did. It also has similarities to NL63, a common cold virus.

HKU5-CoV-2 is a coronavirus belonging to the merbecovirus subgenus, which also includes the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). A lab test by a Chinese researcher found that HKU5-CoV-2 was able to infect human cell cultures in the mini-human organ models the scientists used.

According to the study based on the lab test, Bat merbecoviruses, which are phylogenetically related to MERS-CoV, pose a high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts. However, the virus’s spillover potential needs to be investigated.

Structural and functional analyses indicate that HKU5-CoV-2 has a better adaptation to human ACE2 than lineage 1 HKU5-CoV, the study said. Authentic HKU5-CoV-2 infected human ACE2-expressing cell lines and human respiratory and enteric organoids. This study reveals a distinct lineage of HKU5-CoVs in bats that efficiently use human ACE2 and underscores their potential zoonotic risk, it concluded.