Raccoon Dog SARS and Canine Coronaviruses
Recombinomics Commentary
January 25, 2005
The coronavirus sequences of two M gene isolates were made available today at GenBank. One sequence was from a "healthy dog" (canine CoV/dog/HC2/2004) while the other was from a "healthy raccoon dog " (canine CoV/raccoon dog/HR/2004). Each sequence was 789bp and the two sequences differed at two positions.
Both sequences were class 1 canine corronavirus and quite distinct from SARS CoV sequences, including one isolated from a raccoon dog (SARS CoV/raccoon dog/SZ13/2003).
These data demonstrate that raccoon dogs can harbor both SARS CoV and canine CoV, two very different coronaviruses.