US researchers have identified a change in canine Coronavirus that could reveal how it spreads from animals to people.

In 2017-18, a novel canine coronavirus was found in two Malaysian human patients who acquired pneumonia. In 2021, another group of researchers isolated the canine coronavirus, sequenced it, and published their findings.

Now, a team led by Cornell and Temple University researchers in the United States has identified a pattern in the canine coronavirus spike protein's terminus - the part of the virus that allows entry into a host cell.  The virus switches from infecting both the intestines and the respiratory system of the animal host to just infecting the respiratory system of the human host in this pattern.

The researchers discovered a modification in the terminus, commonly known as the N terminus, a portion of the molecule with changes found in another coronavirus that spread from bats to humans and caused the common cold.

"This study identifies some of the molecular mechanisms underlying a host shift from dog coronavirus to a new human host, which may also be important in the circulation of a new human coronavirus that we didn't know about previously," said Michael Stanhope, a Cornell professor of public and ecosystem health. The researchers employed cutting-edge molecular evolution technologies to analyse how natural selection pressures may have influenced the development of the canine coronavirus in their study, which was published in the journal Viruses.

In 2021, the same canine coronavirus strain discovered in Malaysia was found in a few patients in Haiti who also suffered respiratory disease.

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