The Molecular Biology of Coronaviruses

Abstract

The family Coronaviridae consists of eleven viruses which infect vertebrates and cause a range of diseases mostly affecting the respiratory or the gastrointestinal tract (1). The name Coronavirus was coined by Tyrrel et al. (2) on the basis of the characteristic corona of widely spaced bulbous surface projections, 12–24 nm long, seen in electron micrographs of these viruses (Figure 1). More recently, it has become clear that members of the Coronaviridae share a number of molecular biological features which constitute a unique replication strategy and set these viruses apart from other virus groups. These features may underlie the fascinating biological properties of certain murine coronaviruses which provide one of the best available models for human demyelinating neurological diseases (3).