Human coronaviruses cause both upper and lower respiratory tract infections in humans. In 2012, a sixth human coronavirus (hCoV) was isolated from a patient presenting with severe respiratory illness. The 60-year-old man died as a result of renal and respiratory failure after admission to a hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The aetiological agent was eventually identified as a coronavirus and d...

Membrane fusion between virus and host cells is the key step for enveloped virus entry and is mediated by the viral envelope fusion protein. In murine coronavirus, mouse hepatitis virus (MHV), the spike (S) protein mediates this process. Recently, the formation of anti-parallel 6-helix bundle of the MHV S protein heptad repeat (HR) regions (HR1 and HR2) has been confirmed, implying coronavirus ...

A new coronavirus, MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus) which is related to the coronavirus that caused the SARS outbreak 10 years ago, has been discovered in Saudi Arabia and observed in several other countries since 2012. A mathematical model is constructed in order to theorize possible patterns of the spread of this emerging disease which seems to require an extended conta...

The Eastern Mediterranean Region of World Health Organization has been an emerging focus for global health after the discovery of a novel coronavirus infection in some countries in the Region. The Region has already witnessed a number of emerging zoonoses with epidemic potential. In view of this new virus, there is now an urgent need for strong public health vigilance and monitoring of the evol...

A human coronavirus, called the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), was first identified in September 2012 in samples obtained from a Saudi Arabian businessman who died from acute respiratory failure. Since then, 49 cases of infections caused by MERS-CoV (previously called a novel coronavirus) with 26 deaths have been reported to date. In this report, we describe a family c...

Ferret enteric coronavirus (FRECV) RNA was detected in laboratory ferrets. Analysis of the complete genome sequence of 2 strains, FRCoV4370 and FRCoV063, revealed that FRECV shared 49.9%-68.9% nucleotide sequence identity with known coronaviruses. These results suggest that FRECV might be classified as a new species in the genus Alphacoronavirus.

Avian coronavirus (AvCoV) is a ubiquitous multiple-serotype pathogen of poultry, and its control is mainly based on the use of vaccines. We report here the previously unknown full genomes of the Ma5 (27,652 nucleotides [nt]) and BR-I (27,618 nt) AvCoV vaccine strains of the GI-1 (Massachusetts) and GI-11 (Brazil) types.

Coronavirus particles are enveloped and pleomorphic and are thus refractory to crystallization and symmetry-assisted reconstruction. A novel methodology of single-particle image analysis was applied to selected virus features to obtain a detailed model of the oligomeric state and spatial relationships among viral structural proteins. Two-dimensional images of the S, M, and N structural proteins...

Pilgrims returning from the Hajj might contribute to international spreading of respiratory pathogens. Nasal and throat swab specimens were obtained from 129 pilgrims in 2013 before they departed from France and before they left Saudi Arabia, and tested by PCR for respiratory viruses and bacteria. Overall, 21.5% and 38.8% of pre-Hajj and post-Hajj specimens, respectively, were positive for ≥1 v...

The canine respiratory coronavirus (CRCoV) K37 strain of the family Coronaviridae, group 2, was isolated in South Korea. Its genome was analyzed by nucleotide sequencing and was determined to have 31,029 bp. The small open reading frames situated between the spike and envelope genes of most of the CRCoV strains (except the CRCoV 4180 strain) were found to encode three nonstructural proteins (4....