Tracing the Origin and Transmissionof SARS-CoV-2: Does GenomeResearch Hold the Key?

摘要

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Sincethen, the virus has been rapidly spreading across countries, resulting in the present Corona Virus Disease (COVID-2019) pandemic.Thousands of genomes of different strains of the virus have been sequenced and made available in the public domain which hashelped to detect viral mutations and track movement of the virus across the globe. The whole genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2isolated from a human strain has 96.2% similarity to a bat coronavirus. The strains of SARS-CoV-2 found in different countries aregenetically diverse and infections have been shown to be caused by multiple introductions in the same country. Though there areseveral theories regarding the origin of this virus, genetic studies indicate that it may have appeared by natural selection in humansfollowing zoonotic transfer. This review highlights the recent knowledge of the origin of the coronavirus, its diversity in differentgeographical regions and mutations, which have aided it to infect the human host.