Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

Genome resources

The Virus
RefSeq genome
RefSeq proteins
All genomes
All nucleotide sequences
Coronaviruses genomes
Nidovirales
References

The Disease
SARS
References

Analysis
DNA alignment graphics
DNA alignment text
SARS proteins
Related structures

Tools
BLAST

Related Resources
CDC SARS
CDC SARS-CoV
WHO SARS
MMWD
SARS Reference

Other Resources
SARS at NLM
CBI at PKU
SARS at EBI
SARS Bioinformatics Suite

In late 2002, an outbreak of severe, atypical pneumonia was reported in Guangdong Province of China. The disease had an extremely high mortality rate (up to 15-19%) and quickly expanded to over 25 countries. The World Health Organization coined it "severe acute respiratory syndrome", or SARS. In April 2003, a previously unknown coronavirus was isolated from patients and subsequenly proven to be the causative agent according to Koch's postulates in experiments on monkeys. The virus has been named SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV).

The first complete sequence of SARS coronavirus was produced by the BCCA Genome Sciences Centre, Canada, about 2 weeks after the virus was detected in SARS patients. It was immediately submitted to GenBank prior to publication as a raw nucleotide sequence. GenBank released the sequence to the public the same day under accession number AY274119; the NCBI Viral Genomes Group annotated the sequence also the same day and released it in the form of the Entrez Genomes RefSeq record NC_004718 at 2 a.m. the next day. By the beginning of May, all of the RNA transcripts had been detected and sequenced. As of today, a few SARS-CoV proteins and a cellular receptor have been characterized, an effective replication inhibitor found, and an infectious DNA clone constructed; further experiments are under way.

The availability of the sequence data and functional dissection of the SARS-CoV genome is a necessary prerequisite for developing modern diagnostic tests, antiviral agents, and vaccines. Intriguingly, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, the SARS-CoV cellular receptor that binds S (E2) protein, was found to protect laboratory animals from severe acute lung failure suggesting a therapy for pnemonias, including those caused by SARS-CoV or influenza viruses (Kuba et al., 2005 and references therein).

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Revised: February 8, 2006.