PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Tao Zhang
AU  - Qunfu Wu
AU  - Zhigang Zhang
TI  - Pangolin homology associated with 2019-nCoV
AID  - 10.1101/2020.02.19.950253
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.02.19.950253
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/02/20/2020.02.19.950253.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/02/20/2020.02.19.950253.full
AB  - To explore potential intermediate host of a novel coronavirus is vital to rapidly control continuous COVID-19 spread. We found genomic and evolutionary evidences of the occurrence of 2019-nCoV-like coronavirus (named as Pangolin-CoV) from dead Malayan Pangolins. Pangolin-CoV is 91.02% and 90.55% identical at the whole genome level to 2019-nCoV and BatCoV RaTG13, respectively. Pangolin-CoV is the lowest common ancestor of 2019-nCoV and RaTG13. The S1 protein of Pangolin-CoV is much more closely related to 2019-nCoV than RaTG13. Five key amino-acid residues involved in the interaction with human ACE2 are completely consistent between Pangolin-CoV and 2019-nCoV but four amino-acid mutations occur in RaTG13. It indicates Pangolin-CoV has similar pathogenic potential to 2019-nCoV, and would be helpful to trace the origin and probable intermediate host of 2019-nCoV.