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Updated: Aug 25, 2026

Protocol for Recombinant RBD-based SARS Vaccines: Protein Preparation, Animal Vaccination and Neutralization Detection
Published on: May 2, 2011
Evidence from the evolutionary analysis of nucleotide sequences for a recombinant history of SARS-CoV
Michael J Stanhope1, James R Brown, Heather Amrine-Madsen
1Bioinformatics Division, Genetics Research, GlaxoSmithKline, 1250 South Collegeville Road, Collegeville, PA 19426, USA. michael_j_stanhope@gsk.com
Abstract:
The origins and evolutionary history of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus (SARS-CoV) remain an issue of uncertainty and debate. Based on evolutionary analyses of coronavirus DNA sequences, encompassing an approximately 13kb stretch of the SARS-TOR2 genome, we provide evidence that SARS-CoV has a recombinant history with lineages of types I and III coronavirus. We identified a minimum of five recombinant regions ranging from 83 to 863bp in length and including the polymerase, nsp9, nsp10, and nsp14. Our results are consistent with a hypothesis of viral host jumping events, concomitant with the reassortment of bird and mammalian coronaviruses, a scenario analogous to earlier outbreaks of influenzae.
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