Human Coronavirus HKU1

What is HCoV-HKU1?

HCoV-HKU1 belongs to the A subgroup of the β coronavirus, with 29.9kb gene length and 32% GC content, which is the lowest among all known coronaviruses. The first 2/3 of the RNA strand encodes ORF1a /1b, and the last 1/3 encodes four structural proteins of HCoV-HKU1, including N, S, M, and E, as well as HE protein and auxiliary proteins (encoding regions ORF4 and ORF8) specific to β-coronavirus.

What is The Symptom of HCoV-HKU1?

HCoV-HKU1 usually causes mild to moderate upper respiratory illness, such as colds. Symptoms mainly include runny nose, headache, cough, sore throat, fever, etc., sometimes cause pneumonia or bronchitis and other lower respiratory diseases, which are more common in patients with heart and lung diseases, people with low immunity, infants and the elderly. HCoV-HKUI has been previously reported to be associated with seizures and gastrointestinal disorders in children. Recent studies have shown that it may be the potential cause of the onset of acute wheezing in infants, and can induce the onset of asthma in infants with acute wheezing. Currently, there is not vaccine available.

How does HCoV-HKU1 Enter The Human Cells?

Similar to other HCoVs, the spike (S) protein of HCoV-HKU1 plays an important role in the process of virus recognition and invasion into host cells. It has been reported that S protein will undergo structural changes before binding to cellular receptors, generating a fusion precursor, which provides support for the virus to bind to receptors and fuse with cell membranes. HCoV-HKU1I is the only human coronavirus with unknown cellular receptor to date. Studies have shown that 9-0-ethyl sialic acid is the receptor of HCoV-HKU1. The HE protein of HCoV-HKU1 is similar to the HCoV-OC43, which has the function of receptor hydrolase. After HCoV-HKU invades the body, the infection between adjacent cells may be an important reason for the virus to spread in vivo, and it is also one of the reasons for the virus to avoid the immune attack ^{[4] [5]}.

CUSABIO provides many HCoV-HKU1 recombinant antigens from different as follows:

References

[1] Vabret, A, Dina, J, Gouarin, S et al. Human (non-severe acute respiratory syndrome) coronavirus infections in hospitalised children in France [J]. J. Paediatr. Child Health. 2008, 44, 176–181.

[2] Nehemya Friedman, Hadar Alter, Musa Hindiyeh et al. Human Coronavirus Infections in Israel: Epidemiology, Clinical Symptoms and Summer Seasonality of HCoV-HKU1 [J]. Viruses. 2018, 10, 515.

[3] Zhao Q, Li S, Xue F et al. Structure of the main protease from a global infectious human coronavirus, HCoV-HKU1 [J]. J Virol. 2008, 82(17): 8647-55.

[4] Dominguez SR, TravantyEA, QianZ, et al. Human coronavirus HKU1 infection of primary human type II alveolar epithelial cells: cytopathic effects and innate immune response [J]. PLoS One. 2013, 8(7):e70129.

[5] Huang X, Dong W, Milewska A, et al. Human coronavirus HKU1 spike protein uses O-acetylated sialic acid as an attachment receptor determinant and employs hemagglutinin-esterase protein as a receptor-destroying enzyme[J]. J Virol. 2015, 89(4):7202-7213.