“This virus is closely related to the SARS virus, and looking at the clinical picture, it causes the same pattern of disease,” says Christian Drosten of the University of Bonn Medical Centre in Germany, a lead author of the study, which was funded in part by the European Commission project ANTIGONE.

Gain entry
Given the similarities, Drosten and his colleagues wanted to know whether HCoV-EMC and SARS virus might use the same receptor, a sort of molecular 'dock' on human cells that the virus latches onto, to gain entry to the cell.

Human lung
The receptor for SARS virus, called ACE2, is found mostly on pneumocytes deep within the human lung. Does HCoV-EMC use the same receptor? “The answer is a clear no,” says Drosten. “This virus does not use ACE2.” This leaves open the question what receptor the virus does use.

Animal species
To help identify how HCoV-EMC might have originated and moved between humans and animals, the second part of the study focused on the animal species the virus can infect.

Crucial information
Drosten is driven to find the animal source of the virus, a crucial piece of information in managing a potential outbreak. The virus can infect bats with host ranges that extend all across Europe and into the Arabian Peninsula.

Cases of infection
Drosten says work on HCoV-EMC will continue in many hospitals and laboratories. His own lab continues the search for the HCoV-EMC receptor and will work on developing diagnostic tools to help identify cases of infection with the virus.

The study is published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Read more in the press release.