Hyderabad Varsity Study Reveals New Features Of SARS Coronavirus

A study conducted by the University of Hyderabad (UoH) faculty has revealed that specific regions in spike proteins of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronaviruses are required to cause human infection.

A SARS coronavirus protein named – Spike, that forms a crown-like appearance ‘Corona’ specifically binds to human angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE-2) receptor. A crucial question addressed is what changes might have occurred in SARS coronavirus genomes and the spike proteins during evolution that made the virus capable of causing the human infection?