First genome sequences of buffalo coronavirus from water buffaloes in Bangladesh

New Microbes New Infect. 2016 Mar 3:11:54-6. doi: 10.1016/j.nmni.2016.02.011. eCollection 2016 May.

Authors

S K P Lau¹, A K L Tsang², S Shakeel Ahmed², M Mahbub Alam³, Z Ahmed⁴, P-C Wong², K-Y Yuen¹, P C Y Woo¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Microbiology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; Research Centre of Infection and Immunology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; Carol Yu Centre for Infection, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
² Department of Microbiology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
³ United Hospital Limited, Bangladesh.
⁴ BRAC Dairy and Food Project, BRAC Enterprises, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Abstract

We report the complete genome sequences of a buffalo coronavirus (BufCoV HKU26) detected from the faecal samples of two domestic water buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis) in Bangladesh. They possessed 98-99% nucleotide identities to bovine coronavirus (BCoV) genomes, supporting BufCoV HKU26 as a member of Betacoronavirus 1. Nevertheless, BufCoV HKU26 possessed distinct accessory proteins between spike and envelope compared to BCoV. Sugar-binding residues in the N-terminal domain of S protein in BCoV are conserved in BufCoV HKU26.

Keywords: Coronavirus; water buffalo.