Talk:SARS-CoV-2

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01. There is consensus that the terms "Wuhan virus" or "China virus" should not be used in the Lead of the article. The terms and their history can be discussed in the body of the article. (April 2020)

Work towards A-Class status

I propose we consciously embark on making this an A-Class article. The criteria are:

Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia:Article development. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, appropriately structured, and be well referenced by a broad array of reliable sources. It should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate

. Do any of the wikiprojects involved in this entry have an A-Class assessment departments? Forich (talk) 16:49, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I think A-class is a very uncommon rating. Perhaps WP:GA would be a good goal. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:43, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Caption for the bottom image accompanying article lead

'Atomic model of the external structure of the SARS-CoV-2 virion. Each "ball" is an atom.'

Despite the rather confusing description of the source stating this also: Each "ball" depicted is not an individual Atom but rather a Chemical compound consisting of multiple different chemically bonded atoms.

I have never seen the individual structures of the viral envelope referred to as 'atoms' before, though it it possible that is simply an archaic convention among virologists that I am unaware of.

At any rate though, the link in the caption for this image does direct to the Wikipedia article for atoms.

Would anyone mind correcting for the above? I believe that I am unable to do so myself given the (understandable) protected status of this article. 2A02:A443:AF4E:1:D5A2:151D:A66C:5A5 (talk) 20:29, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, each "ball" is actually a specific amino acid, which the source image discusses in depth in its description. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:54, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Erroneous statement of similarity to feline coronavirus

In the "Phylogenetics and taxonomy" section, the claim is made: "The furin cleavage site PRRAR↓ is identical to that of the feline coronavirus, an alphacoronavirus 1 strain." However, the source cited for this statement contradicts this claim. According to the source, there are two variants of feline coronavirus. FECV, which is milder, and FIPV which can be fatal, and that the mild variant has an optimized furin cleavage site, whereas the severe variant has a mutated or even missing furin cleavage site:

For example, the feline enteric coronavirus (FECV), responsible for a milder and localized form of enteric infection in the infected cat, carried a highly optimized furin cleavage site at S1/S2. In contrast, in the spike protein of the feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV), that caused systemic infection and death of the infected cat, the polybasic insert was either completely lost or found mutated.

It goes on to state that the mild form (FECV) has a furin cleavage site with the sequence RRARR↓ (note that this does not match the sequence PRRAR↓ which the Wikipedia article claims is identical):

The presence of a furin cleavage site RRARR↓S in the feline spike protein of the less infectious strain FECV and the presence of PRRAR↓S in the SARS-CoV-2 prompted us to analyse the sequences more carefully.

It also states that of the two feline coronavirus variants, SARS-CoV-2's cleavage site is more similar to the mild variant's site (which as shown above does not have an identical furin cleavage site):

Thus the polybasic insert of CoV-2 spike protein is closer to that of the spike protein of the milder feline coronavirus but carries crucial substitutions that are either uncommon or are disfavored in classical Furin substrates.

This clearly shows that the cited paper does not support the claim made in this article that the PRRAR↓ furin cleavage site present in SARS-CoV-2 is identical to the furin cleavage site in the feline coronavirus. It even appears that not only is the claim not supported by that source, but that the claim may even be incorrect (according to the statements from the source). Moulding (talk) 21:11, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Why don't we just say "nearly identical" since it's only one proline off? And other source say they're very similar: [1] [2]

Indeed, the second source there says: For instance, a similar P-R-R-A-R motif in the spike of a feline CoV has been observed to be encoded with a CGG-CGA for the double Arginine (Bank-Wolf et al. 2014). In this case, a single mutation could change the CGG-CGA to a CGG-CGG. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:54, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

The second source refers only to the general PRRAR motif found in some FIPV sequences, not the entire cleavage sequece. As can be seen in the original source graphic, the entire cleavage sequence that matched that motif in FIPV was PRRARM↓S, which still is not identical to PRRAR↓S. It also shows that the consensus sequence appears to be SRRSRR↓S (which is not at all similar to SARS-CoV-2's sequence, and it may be misleading for this Wikipedia article to suggest otherwise).

Original source graphic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3713968/figure/F2/ Moulding (talk) 23:06, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm just gonna change the text to be "highly similar" to, since they are quite similar in the sense of BLOSUM similarity. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:57, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Airborne

I changed the lead to clarify that SARS-CoV-2 is airborne. Sparkie82 (t•c) 23:46, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Origin update?...

From the article's intro: "Available evidence indicates that it is most likely of zoonotic origin and has close genetic similarity to bat coronaviruses, suggesting it emerged from a bat-borne virus."

The citation provided there though (#18) is dated 2020, when the pandemic was still quite new, and our understanding of the virus and its origins were much more limited. We now have US government agencies, like the Energy Dept in the recent report, saying that a lab leak origin is more likely. So I would suggest that this part of the intro be updated, rewritten, and much newer citations used. -2003:CA:871C:D28:77AA:E11E:9B4:E4E6 (talk) 11:32, 28 February 2023 (UTC)