Prior research to prove hypothesis of a jump

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In the paper, "Functional assessment of cell entry and receptor usage for lineage B beta-coronaviruses" The researchers hypothesis is that a 2nd host must have been involved in the jump to humans. So to prove the hypothesis they actually create the chimeric virus. This paper was from January 22 2020. There are earlier papers prior to 2019 essentially describing the creation of chimeric viruses to prove hypothesis. This research is done probably 1. To prove the Hyp. 2. To gain money for further research and development of vaccines to get ahead of a potential outbreak. What they have potentially done here is created novel chimeric viruses which actually didn't exist in nature (even though they thought they did) and due to sloppiness or a rouge scientist...let it escape.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.22.915660v1.full "All 29 RBDs were codon optimized, synthesized and cloned in place of the SARS RBD, effectively generating chimeric spike expression constructs. We then generated VSV-luciferase reporter particles pseudotyped with the chimeric spikes (figure 1c). We chose VSV over lentiviruses as our pseudotype platform because a lentiviral pseudotypes have failed to accurately reflect viral entry with novel bat coronavirus spike protein7. All constructs exhibited similar levels of expression in producer cells and incorporation into VSV pseudotypes, except the chimera with BM48-31 which displayed somewhat reduced expression compared to WT SARS spike (figure 1d). We then infected BHK cells expressing the receptor for SARS-CoV or empty vector (figure 1e) and observed only clade 1, which includes SARS-CoV, WIV1 and SHC014, could enter cells transfected with human ACE2 (figure 1e)."

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https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/concern/parent/70795d67x/file_sets/05741x50k

"Elucidation of the effects of these specific mutations may be key to understanding the genotypic variations that lead to more lethal phenotypes of SARS-CoV and coronaviruses in general. Such knowledge could allow rapid synthesis of chimeric viruses for use in evaluating and developing effective antiviral treatments."

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2588415/

In this study, we have combined phylogenetic and bioinformatics analyses, large-scale cDNA synthesis, chimeric gene design, and reverse genetics to generate a consensus Bat-SCoV. Successful recovery of the infectious chimeric virus, Bat-SRBD, which includes the RBD within Spike from human SARS-CoV, demonstrates the plasticity of the CoV type I glycoprotein. The synthetic reconstruction and recovery of this novel chimeric virus identifies a necessary genetic element for CoV cross-species transmission, establishes a model system for testing experimental evolution of zoonotic CoVs, and allows for testing of vaccine and therapeutics against possible future zoonotic strains.

The engineered Spike proteins are pictured below with the virus name to the left. Bat-SRBD includes all of the Bat-SCoV Spike sequence except that the Bat-SCoV RBD (Bat-SCoV amino acid 323–505) is replaced with the SARS-CoV RBD (amino acid 319–518) (GenBank accession no. FJ211860). Bat-SRBD-MA includes the MA15 Spike RBD change at SARS-CoV aa Y436H. Bat-SRBM includes the minimal 13 SARS-CoV residues critical for ACE2 contact, resulting in a chimeric RBD of Bat-SCoV amino acid 323I-429T and SARS-CoV amino acid 426R-518D.

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So was SARS-COV-2 replicated chimerically in that paper?

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Has this paper "Functional assessment of cell entry and receptor usage for lineage B beta-coronaviruses" been peer reviewed yet?

Thank you!

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lineage B beta-coronaviruses" been peer reviewed yet? Its no longer in prepub. I believe there are 5 citations.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0688-y