ArticleMolecular biology and evolution2020
Viral CpG Deficiency Provides No Evidence That Dogs Were Intermediate Hosts for SARS-CoV-2.
Article in Molecular biology and evolution, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- SARS-CoV-2 infection in animals: Patterns, transmission routes, and drivers.Eco-Environment & Health · 2024Review
- Genomic representation predicts an asymptotic host adaptation of bat coronaviruses using deep learning.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Deep learning based on biologically interpretable genome representation predicts two types of human adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 variants.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2022Article
- The Slowing Rate of CpG Depletion in SARS-CoV-2 Genomes Is Consistent with Adaptations to the Human Host.Molecular biology and evolution · 2022Article
- The low abundance of CpG in the SARS-CoV-2 genome is not an evolutionarily signature of ZAP.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Natural Transmission and Experimental Models of SARS CoV-2 Infection in Animals.Comparative medicine · 2021Article
- The Functional Consequences of the Novel Ribosomal Pausing Site in SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein RNA.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Predicting the animal hosts of coronaviruses from compositional biases of spike protein and whole genome sequences through machine learning.PLoS pathogens · 2021Article
- Urgent Need for Field Surveys of Coronaviruses in Southeast Asia to Understand the SARS-CoV-2 Phylogeny and Risk Assessment for Future Outbreaks.Biomolecules · 2021Article
- Natural selection in the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in bats created a generalist virus and highly capable human pathogen.PLoS biology · 2021Article
- COVID-19 in Farm Animals: Host Susceptibility and Prevention Strategies.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Review
- The Long-Term Evolutionary History of Gradual Reduction of CpG Dinucleotides in the SARS-CoV-2 Lineage.Biology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors at 11 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Due to the scope and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic there exists a strong desire to understand where the SARS-CoV-2 virus came from and how it jumped species boundaries to humans. Molecular evolutionary analyses can trace viral origins by establishing relatedness and divergence times of viruses and identifying past selective pressures. However, we must uphold rigorous standards of inference and interpretation on this topic because of the ramifications of being wrong. Here, we dispute the conclusions of Xia (2020. Extreme genomic CpG deficiency in SARS-CoV-2 and evasion of host antiviral defense. Mol Biol Evol. doi:10.1093/molbev/masa095) that dogs are a likely intermediate host of a SARS-CoV-2 ancestor. We highlight major flaws in Xia's inference process and his analysis of CpG deficiencies, and conclude that there is no direct evidence for the role of dogs as intermediate hosts. Bats and pangolins currently have the greatest support as ancestral hosts of SARS-CoV-2, with the strong caveat that sampling of wildlife species for coronaviruses has been limited.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.