Broadly protective coronavirus vaccines are an important tool for protecting against future SARS-CoV-2 variants and could play a critical role in mitigating the impact of future outbreaks or pandemics caused by novel coronaviruses. The Coronavirus Vaccines Research and Development (R&D) Roadmap (CVR) is aimed at promoting the development of such va...
Published in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Coronavirus infection is a global emergency. Over the past few months, there is a rapid increase in the number of cases and deaths due to coronavirus infection. It has been observed that elderly individuals and those with medical co-morbidities are maximally affected. In children and adolescents, coronavirus infection has low mortality as well as t...
Published in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
In the last week of December 2019, few patients with the history of pyrexia of unknown origin and symptoms of lower respiratory tract infections were detected in Wuhan, a well-known area as the largest metropolitan city located in the province of Hubei, China. On further investigation, a novel coronavirus was identified as the causative pathogen, w...
Published in Coronavirus Drug Discovery
Coronavirus disease is a highly infectious disease caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus, now recognized as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. This pandemic caused great stress in the general public and led to the collapse of healthcare system in some places. Till date, there has not been an effective vaccine or antiviral drug for its ...
Published in Current topics in microbiology and immunology
Coronavirus genome replication and transcription take place at cytoplasmic membranes and involve coordinated processes of both continuous and discontinuous RNA synthesis that are mediated by the viral replicase, a huge protein complex encoded by the 20-kb replicase gene. The replicase complex is believed to be comprised of up to 16 viral subunits a...
Published in Current topics in microbiology and immunology
In addition to the SARS coronavirus (treated separately elsewhere in this volume), the complete genome sequences of six species in the coronavirus genus of the coronavirus family [avian infectious bronchitis virus-Beaudette strain (IBV-Beaudette), bovine coronavirus-ENT strain (BCoV-ENT), human coronavirus-229E strain (HCoV-229E), murine hepatitis ...
Published in Current topics in microbiology and immunology
As the largest RNA virus, coronavirus replication employs complex mechanisms and involves various viral and cellular proteins. The first open reading frame of the coronavirus genome encodes a large polyprotein, which is processed into a number of viral proteins required for viral replication directly or indirectly. These proteins include the RNA-de...
Published in Coronavirus Drug Discovery
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a disease caused by the novel coronavirus called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The name coronavirus was derived from their crown-like spikes that exist on their exterior. Coronaviruses have been classified into four main subcategories, namely, alpha, beta, gamma, and delta coron...
Published in Current topics in microbiology and immunology
In this article, we describe the reverse genetic system that is based on the use of vaccinia virus cloning vectors. This system represents a generic approach to coronavirus reverse genetics and was first described for the generation of recombinant human coronavirus 229E representing a group I coronavirus. Subsequently, the same approach has been us...
Published in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
The positive-strand RNA viruses, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and recently emerged COVID-19 epidemics, demonstrated the transmission capability of the coronaviruses by crossing the species barrier and emergence in humans. The source of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2...
