Updated Analysis to Reject the Laboratory-Engineering Hypothesis of SARS-CoV-2

Authors

Fuqing Wu

Publication Date

5-1-2023

Journal

Environmental Research

Abstract

A clear understanding of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is important for future pandemic preparedness. Here, I provided an updated analysis of the type IIS endonuclease maps in genomes of alphacoronavirus, betacoronavirus, and SARS-CoV-2. Scenarios to engineer SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory and the associated workload was also discussed. The analysis clearly shows that the endonuclease fingerprint does not indicate a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2 and engineering a SARS-CoV-2 virus in the laboratory is extremely challenging both scientifically and financially. On the contrary, current scientific evidence does support the animal origin of SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords

Animals, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, Alphacoronavirus, Laboratory origin, SARS-CoV-2, Type IIS endonuclease, Genomic analysis, Engineering

DOI

10.1016/j.envres.2023.115481

PMID

36804316

PMCID

PMC9937728

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

2-18-2023

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Published Open-Access

yes