11 March 2020

An in-depth annotation of the newly discovered coronavirus (2019-nCoV) genome has revealed differences between 2019-nCoV and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or SARS-like coronaviruses. A systematic comparison identified 380 amino acid substitutions between these coronaviruses, which may have caused functional and pathogenic divergence of 2019-nCoV.

A novel coronavirus (CoV) named “2019 novel coronavirus” or “2019-nCoV” by the World Health Organization (WHO) is responsible for the recent pneumonia outbreak that started in early December, 2019 in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China (Huang et al., 2020, Zhou et al., 2020, Zhu et al., 2020). This outbreak is associated with a large seafood and animal market, and investigations are ongoing to determine the origins of the infection. To date, thousands of human infections have been confirmed in China along with many exported cases across the globe (China CDC, 2020).