Correspondence

A Novel Coronavirus and SARS

N Engl J Med 2003; 349:709August 14, 2003

Article

To the Editor:

Ksiazek et al. (May 15 issue)1 report that there is antibody cross-reactivity between serum from a patient with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (SARS) and antibodies that are reactive with group I coronaviruses. This finding raises the possibility of using existing vaccines against these heterologous coronaviruses for protection against SARS. Unfortunately, the study did not show any virus-neutralization activity. Nevertheless, the close similarity between the SARS open reading frame 1b and other human and animal coronaviruses lends support to the idea of using heterologous coronaviral strains, which are harmless to humans, as vaccines. There are several historical examples of successful heterologous vaccination, such as cowpox virus for smallpox in humans and bacille Calmette–Guérin derived from mycobacterium in cattle for tuberculosis in humans. Furthermore, it has been shown that pathogens cause diseases primarily through their ability to evade immune control and through mimicry of host proteins.2 “Fuzzy” antigenic recognition might enable T-cell clones to recognize a spectrum of antigens, even antigens that are not closely similar to one another. Thus, the use of altered heterologous antigens, which are structurally different from self-antigens, may improve immunity against the orthologous pathogens.3

Qibin Leng, Ph.D.
Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
qibin_leng@yahoo.com

Zvi Bentwich, M.D.
Rosetta Genomics, Rehovot 76701, Israel

3 References

1. 1

   Ksiazek TG, Erdman D, Goldsmith CS, et al. A novel coronavirus associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome. N Engl J Med 2003;348:1953-1966
   Full Text | Web of Science | Medline

2. 2

   Kotwal GJ. Poxviral mimicry of complement and chemokine system components: what's the end game? Immunol Today 2000;21:242-248
   CrossRef | Medline

3. 3

   Leng Q, Bentwich Z. Beyond self and nonself: fuzzy recognition of the immune system. Scand J Immunol 2002;56:224-232
   CrossRef | Web of Science | Medline

Citing Articles (5)

Citing Articles

1. 1

   Bin Xia, Xue Kang. (2011) Activation and maturation of SARS-CoV main protease. Protein & Cell 2:4, 282-290
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2. 2

   Shengnan Zhang, Nan Zhong, Fei Xue, Xue Kang, Xiaobai Ren, Jiaxuan Chen, Changwen Jin, Zhiyong Lou, Bin Xia. (2010) Three-dimensional domain swapping as a mechanism to lock the active conformation in a super-active octamer of SARS-CoV main protease. Protein & Cell 1:4, 371-383
   CrossRef

3. 3

   Robert A. Fowler, Steven A. R. Webb, Kathy M. Rowan, Charles L. Sprung, B. Taylor Thompson, Adrienne G. Randolph, Philippe Jouvet, Stephen Lapinsky, Lewis Rubinson, Jordi Rello, J. Perren Cobb, Todd W. Rice, Tim Uyeki, John C. Marshall. (2010) Early observational research and registries during the 2009–2010 influenza A pandemic. Critical Care Medicine 38, e120-e132
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4. 4

   Chun-Yu Huang, Yen-Lan Hsu, Wan-Ling Chiang, Ming-Hon Hou. (2009) Elucidation of the stability and functional regions of the human coronavirus OC43 nucleocapsid protein. Protein Science 18:11, 2209-2218
   CrossRef

5. 5

   Kewen Zheng, Guozheng Ma, Jinming Zhou, Min Zen, Wenna Zhao, Yongjun Jiang, Qingsen Yu, Jialiang Feng. (2007) Insight into the activity of SARS main protease: Molecular dynamics study of dimeric and monomeric form of enzyme. Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics 66:2, 467-479
   CrossRef