武漢病毒研究所的石正麗、葛興義於2015年11月9日在 Nature Medicine上發表的論文，承認他們人工合成了 SARS-CoV病毒（類SARS冠狀病毒），該病毒能利用 SARS的感染機制來感染人類。
該論文標題為：A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence
連結：https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985
論文作者葛興義、石正麗皆來自武漢病毒研究所：
Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Xing-Yi Ge& Zhengli-Li Shi
論文摘要：
Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone.
The results indicate that group2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II(ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with notable pathogenesis.
Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection with CoVs using the novel spike protein.
On the basis of these findings, we synthetically re-derived an infectious full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication both in vitro and in vivo. Our work suggests a potential risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations.
