Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR

BackgroundThe ongoing outbreak of the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) poses a challenge for public health laboratories as virus isolates are unavailable while there is growing evidence that the outbreak is more widespread than initially thought, and international spread through travellers does already occur.AimWe aimed to develop and deploy robust diagnostic methodology for use in public health laboratory settings without having virus material available.MethodsHere we present a validated diagnostic workflow for 2019-nCoV, its design relying on close genetic relatedness of 2019-nCoV with SARS coronavirus, making use of synthetic nucleic acid technology.ResultsThe workflow reliably detects 2019-nCoV, and further discriminates 2019-nCoV from SARS-CoV. Through coordination between academic and public laboratories, we confirmed assay exclusivity based on 297 original clinical specimens containing a full spectrum of human respiratory viruses. Control material is made available through European Virus Archive - Global (EVAg), a European Union infrastructure project.ConclusionThe present study demonstrates the enormous response capacity achieved through coordination of academic and public laboratories in national and European research networks

A conformational study of the calixspherand and its complexes with alkali-metal cations

The calixpherand 2 forms kinetically very stable complexes with alkalimetal cations. This molecule is not completely preorganized for binding of a cation, as is evidenced from the results of NOESY spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements. Both in CDCl3 solution and in the solid state the free ligand adopts a cone conformation, whereas the Na+ complex adopts a flattened partial cone conformation. Molecular-mechanics calculations with different programs give rather biased results. Calculations with QUANTA(the all atom CHARMM-force field) correctly predict the conformation of the free ligand but not of the complexes, whereas with MACROMODEL(the united atom AMBER-force field) the experimentally observed conformation had the lowest energy only for the Na+ complex. The calculated geometries of the experimentally found conformations of the free ligand and the Na+ complex agree well with the X-ray structures, especially for the structures that were obtained with QUANTA. A comparison of the calculated structures of the Na+, K+ and Rb+ complexes showed that larger cations force the terphenyl bridge to bend away, thereby opening up the cage of the ligand and making the cation more accessible to solvent molecules. This might explain the considerably lower kinetic and thermodynamic stability of the Rb+ complex compared with those of the Na+ and K+ complexes

First detection of an enterovirus C99 in a captive chimpanzee with acute flaccid paralysis, from the Tchimpounga chimpanzee rehabilitation center, Republic of Congo

Enteroviruses, members of the Picornaviridae family, are ubiquitous viruses responsible for mild to severe infections in human populations around the world. In 2010 Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo recorded an outbreak of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) in the humans, caused by wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1). One month later, in the Tchimpounga sanctuary near Pointe-Noire, a chimpanzee developed signs similar to AFP, with paralysis of the lower limbs. In the present work, we sought to identify the pathogen, including viral and bacterial agents, responsible for this illness. In order to identify the causative agent, we evaluated a fecal specimen by PCR and sequencing. A Human enterovirus C, specifically of the EV-C99 type was potentially responsible for the illness in this chimpanzee. To rule out other possible causative agents, we also investigated the bacteriome and the virome using next generation sequencing. The majority of bacterial reads obtained belonged to commensal bacteria (95%), and the mammalian virus reads matched mainly with viruses of the Picornaviridae family (99%), in which enteroviruses were the most abundant (99.6%). This study thus reports the first identification of a chimpanzee presenting AFP most likely caused by an enterovirus and demonstrates once again the cross-species transmission of a human pathogen to an ape