ZHANG Rong1, YI Zhigang1, WANG Yuyan1, TENG Zheng2, XU Wei1, SONG Wuhui1, CAI Xia1, SUN Zhiping1, GU Chenjian1, ZHOU Yanqiu2, CHEN Hongyou2, YE Rong1, HAN Wendong1, ZHU Yunkai1, FENG Fei1, FANG Fangha
The spread of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) poses a serious threat to human health. We report here the isolation of a 2019-nCoV strain named nCoV-SH01 from the throat swab from a COVID-19 patient in Shanghai. The isolate grows well on Vero E6 cells with typical syncytial cytopathic effects. The nCoV-SH01 genome has been sequenced using sanger sequencing and Illumina sequencing and analyzed, which shares more than 99.99% identity to a reference sequence (GenBank MN988668 2019-nCoV Wuhan-Hu-1 isolate) with a difference of only three nucleotides. Immunofluorescence results showed that nCoV-SH01-infected cells reacted with the serum of a convalescent COVID-19 patient, suggesting virus replication in cultured cells. The isolation of nCoV-SH01 provides the basis on which cell and animal infection models would be established to facilitate the study of 2019-nCoV pathogenicity and the development of antiviral drugs and vaccines.