1. Yanqun Wang^a,
2. Di Liu^b,^c,
3. Weifeng Shi^d,
4. Roujian Lu^a,
5. Wenling Wang^a,
6. Yanjie Zhao^a,
7. Yao Deng^a,
8. Weimin Zhou^a,
9. Hongguang Ren^e,
10. Jun Wu^b,
11. Yu Wang^f,
12. Guizhen Wu^a,
13. George F. Gao^a,^b,^f,
14. Wenjie Tan^a

+ Author Affiliations

1. ^aKey Laboratory of Medical Virology, Ministry of Health, National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China
2. ^bCAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
3. ^cNetwork Information Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
4. ^dInstitute of Pathogen Biology, Taishan Medical College, Taian, China
5. ^eState Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity, Beijing, China
6. ^fOffice of Director-General, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China

1. Address correspondence to George F. Gao, gaofu@chinacdc.cn, or Wenjie Tan, tanwj28@163.com.

1. Yanqun Wang, Di Liu, Weifeng Shi, and Roujian Lu contributed equally to this work.

2. Editor Michael J. Buchmeier, University of California, Irvine

IMPORTANCE

The recent outbreak of MERS-CoV in South Korea has attracted global media attention due to the speed of spread and onward transmission. Here, we present the complete genome of the first imported MERS-CoV case in China and demonstrate genetic recombination events between group 3 and group 5 of clade B that may have implications for the transmissibility of MERS-CoV.

Footnotes

• Citation Wang Y, Liu D, Shi W, Lu R, Wang W, Zhao Y, Deng Y, Zhou W, Ren H, Wu J, Wang Y, Wu G, Gao GF, Tan W. 2015. Origin and possible genetic recombination of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus from the first imported case in China: phylogenetics and coalescence analysis. mBio 6(5):e01280-15. doi:10.1128/mBio.01280-15.

• This article is a direct contribution from a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.