Infection and Immunity Response Mechanism of Coronavirus in Animals

Dear Colleagues,

Coronaviruses are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome whose size is about 30 kilobases (kb), encoding 16 nonstructural proteins (NSPs), 4 structural proteins, and several accessory proteins. Coronaviruses consist of four genera, namely Alphacoronavirus, Betacoronavirus, Deltacoronavirus, and Gammacoronavirus, and can infect a wide range of avian and mammalian hosts including humans.

Over the last two decades, humans have witnessed and suffered three major bat-derived coronavirus pandemics: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1) in 2002, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 causing Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in 2019. In addition, animals also suffer from coronavirus pandemics; for example, porcine epidemic diarrhea coronavirus (PEDV) is a major causative agent of swine enteric disease in pigs of all ages. It was initially reported in the United Kingdom and Belgium in the early 1970s, and a highly pathogenic variant strain was identified in 2010, which caused high morbidity of up to 100% in piglets. Other animal coronaviruses, such as transmissible gastroenteritis coronavirus (TGEV), porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV), swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV), infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), feline coronavirus (FCoV), etc., cause huge economic loss in human society. With the lack of a basic understanding of the infection and immunity mechanism of coronavirus, current antiviral therapeutic strategies or vaccines cannot provide complete protection from coronavirus infection.

In recent years, efforts have been made to understand the underlying molecular mechanism responsible for the high level of viral transmissibility. The characterization of the coronavirus infection process, as well as viral and host factors that are involved in the pathogenesis of viral infection; broad tissue tropism or interspecies transmission; the development of novel or repurposed therapeutic agents targeting host–pathogen interaction; the molecular mechanism underlying vaccines or drugs and possible viral breakthrough infections and immune evasion, etc., remains largely unexplored.

This Special Issue, “Infection and Immunity Response Mechanism of Coronavirus in Animals”, will focus on but not be limited to the topics mentioned above. We accept original research articles, critical reviews, and commentaries. Research regarding coronaviruses in a wide spectrum of animals including domestic or wild animals is welcome.

We look forward to receiving your contributions that will improve our knowledge of the infection and immunity mechanism of coronavirus in animals.

Prof. Dr. Fei Liu
Dr. Honglei Zhang
Dr. Yangyang Li
Dr. Yanke Shan
Guest Editors

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