Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Brewers Yeast) used to fully reassemble and genetically engineer genome of SARS-CoV-2. microbialcell.com/researcharticl… #sars2origin

"SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1 are differentially enriched with short chromosomal sequences from the yeast S. cerevisiae at focal positions that are known to be critical for host cell invasion, virus replication, and host immune response." f1000research.com/articles/10-91…

"These results provide evidence that the genomes of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 contain sequence information that points to their artificial synthesis in genetically modified yeast cells."

"Our data specifically allow the identification of the yeast S. cerevisiae as a potential recombination donor for the critical furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2."

@Kevin McKernan @Rossana Segreto @William E. Colby