11:56 - 30.07.2020

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July 30, Fineko/abc.az. SARS-CoV-2 virus on the family tree moved away from related bat coronaviruses like RaTG13 not last year or even this millennium, but about 40-70 years ago.

ABC.AZ reports with reference to the foreign media that the relevant statement was made by scientists from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Edinburgh and the Center for Virus Research at the University of Glasgow, who conducted a thorough genetic analysis of the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses.

The authors write in Nature Microbiology that horseshoe bat coronaviruses most likely acquired the ability to infect the homo sapiens species during their own evolution, rather than through "crossing" (gene exchange) with viruses of pangolin or other animals. They were able to isolate stable sections of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and reconstruct its evolution from them.

Assuming that SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 had a common ancestor, the researchers concluded that the former "budded" on the evolutionary tree between 1948-1982.