TY - JOUR AU - Lu, Hongchao AU - Zhao, Yi AU - Zhang, Jingfen AU - Wang, Yuelan AU - Li, Wei AU - Zhu, Xiaopeng AU - Sun, Shiwei AU - Xu, Jingyi AU - Ling, Lunjiang AU - Cai, Lun AU - Bu, Dongbo AU - Chen, Runsheng PY - 2004 DA - 2004/02/06 TI - Date of origin of the SARS coronavirus strains JO - BMC Infectious Diseases SP - 3 VL - 4 IS - 1 AB - A new respiratory infectious epidemic, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), broke out and spread throughout the world. By now the putative pathogen of SARS has been identified as a new coronavirus, a single positive-strand RNA virus. RNA viruses commonly have a high rate of genetic mutation. It is therefore important to know the mutation rate of the SARS coronavirus as it spreads through the population. Moreover, finding a date for the last common ancestor of SARS coronavirus strains would be useful for understanding the circumstances surrounding the emergence of the SARS pandemic and the rate at which SARS coronavirus diverge. SN - 1471-2334 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2334-4-3 DO - 10.1186/1471-2334-4-3 ID - Lu2004 ER -