Morphology and Morphogenesis of Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)-associated Virus
ZHANG Qin-Fen, CUI Jin-Ming, HUANG Xiao-Jun, LIN Wei, TAN Dong-Yan, XU
Jie-Wei, YANG Yi-Feng, ZHANG Jing-Qiang*
( State
Key Lab for Biocontrol, Zhongshan University, Guangzhou 510275, China )
ZHANG Xin, LI Hui, ZHENG Huan-Ying, CHEN
Qiu-Xia, YAN Xin-Ge, ZHENG Kui, WAN Zhuo-Yue, HUANG Jie-Cheng
( The
Center for Disease Control of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou 510300, China )
Abstract After
infecting the Vero E6 cells by nasal/throat swabs collected from SARS patients,
we studied the SARS-associated virus by electron microscopy and molecular
biological technique. The results show that the diameter of newly isolated
virus is about 50 nm without envelope or 100 nm with envelope. The virus was
proved to be a new coronavirus by RT-PCR and it responded positively to
convalescent-phase serum specimen from SARS patients, which is the evidence
that this new virus is etiologically linked to the outbreak of SARS. The
morphogenesis and distribution of the virus are also discussed in this article.
Key words severe
acute respiratory syndrome (SARS); coronavirus; electron microscopy
*Corresponding
author: Tel, 86-20-84112286; Fax, 86-20-84110106;
e-mail, [email protected]