According to the report of The New York Times, the latest research of Pasteur Institute in Paris found that the coronavirus in Lao bats is surprisingly good at infecting human cells, which shows that this fatal feature can evolve in nature outside the laboratory, which is helpful to understand the origin of COVID-19.
In the summer of 2020, scientists went into the forests of northern Laos to catch bats that might carry close relatives of COVID-19 pathogens. Scientists used nets and canvas to catch bats flying out of caves in the dead of night, and collected samples of bat saliva, urine and feces. After confirming that there was coronavirus in bat feces samples, scientists conducted research in a highly safe biological laboratory with special protective equipment and air filters.
Researchers found that the three coronaviruses collected from bats in Laos were unusual. They have a spike protein on their surface, which is very similar to the spike protein on COVID-19, and can easily adhere to human cells. Some experts believe that these COVID-19-like viruses may have infected humans and caused slight and limited transmission, but as long as conditions are ripe, they may cause a pandemic similar to COVID-19.
Experts said that these findings are of great significance for tracing COVID-19. Some people firmly believe that the amazing ability of infecting human cells like COVID-19 cannot have evolved naturally. But this new discovery shows that this is not the case. Wolobi, a virologist at the University of Arizona, said: “This can really put an end to all the ideas that the virus must have been made in a laboratory, or some kind of artificial modification can be so contagious.”
This research report has been published online recently, but has not been published in scientific journals.
