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The recency and geographical origins of the bat viruses ancestral to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2
Author links open overlay panelJonathan E. Pekar 1 2 3 4 21 23
,Spyros Lytras 5 6 21,Mahan Ghafari 7,Andrew F. Magee 8,Edyth Parker 9 10,Yu Wang 11,Xiang Ji 12,Jennifer L. Havens 2,Aris Katzourakis 7,Tetyana I. Vasylyeva 4 13,Marc A. Suchard 8 14 15,Alice C. Hughes 16 17,Joseph Hughes 6,Andrew Rambaut 1,David L. Robertson 6 22,Simon Dellicour 18 19 22,Michael Worobey 20 22,Joel O. Wertheim 4 22,Philippe Lemey 19 22
The emergence of SARS-CoV in 2002 and SARS-CoV-2 in 2019 led to increased sampling of sarbecoviruses circulating in horseshoe bats. Employing phylogenetic inference while accounting for recombination of bat sarbecoviruses, we find that the closest-inferred bat virus ancestors of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 existed less than a decade prior to their emergence in humans. Phylogeographic analyses show bat sarbecoviruses traveled at rates approximating their horseshoe bat hosts and circulated in Asia for millennia. We find that the direct ancestors of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are unlikely to have reached their respective sites of emergence via dispersal in the bat reservoir alone, supporting interactions with intermediate hosts through wildlife trade playing a role in zoonotic spillover. These results can guide future sampling efforts and demonstrate that viral genomic regions extremely closely related to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 were circulating in horseshoe bats, confirming their importance as the reservoir species for SARS viruses.
Author links open overlay panelJonathan E. Pekar 1 2 3 4 21 23
,Spyros Lytras 5 6 21,Mahan Ghafari 7,Andrew F. Magee 8,Edyth Parker 9 10,Yu Wang 11,Xiang Ji 12,Jennifer L. Havens 2,Aris Katzourakis 7,Tetyana I. Vasylyeva 4 13,Marc A. Suchard 8 14 15,Alice C. Hughes 16 17,Joseph Hughes 6,Andrew Rambaut 1,David L. Robertson 6 22,Simon Dellicour 18 19 22,Michael Worobey 20 22,Joel O. Wertheim 4 22,Philippe Lemey 19 22
The emergence of SARS-CoV in 2002 and SARS-CoV-2 in 2019 led to increased sampling of sarbecoviruses circulating in horseshoe bats. Employing phylogenetic inference while accounting for recombination of bat sarbecoviruses, we find that the closest-inferred bat virus ancestors of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 existed less than a decade prior to their emergence in humans. Phylogeographic analyses show bat sarbecoviruses traveled at rates approximating their horseshoe bat hosts and circulated in Asia for millennia. We find that the direct ancestors of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are unlikely to have reached their respective sites of emergence via dispersal in the bat reservoir alone, supporting interactions with intermediate hosts through wildlife trade playing a role in zoonotic spillover. These results can guide future sampling efforts and demonstrate that viral genomic regions extremely closely related to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 were circulating in horseshoe bats, confirming their importance as the reservoir species for SARS viruses.
