On December 31, 2019, a novel coronavirus, being the third highly infective CoV and named as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the city of Wuhan, was announced by the World Health Organization. COVID-19 has a 2% mortality rate, is known as the third extremely infective CoV infection, and has a mortality rate less than MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV. The CoV family comprises a chief number of positive single-stranded ss (+) RNA viruses that are recognized in mammals. The 2019-nCoV patients showed that the angiotensin-converting enzyme II (ACE2) was the same for SARS-CoV. Structural proteins have an essential role in virus released and budding to various host cells. Notably, evidence indicated human-to-human transmission, along with several exported patients of virus infection worldwide. Nowadays, no licensed antivirals drugs or vaccines for being utilized against these coronavirus infections are recognized. There is an urgent requirement for an extensive research of CoV infections to disclose the route of extension, pathogenesis, and diagnosis and then to recognize the therapeutic targets to facilitate disease control and surveillance. In this article, we present an overview of the common biological criteria of CoVs and explain pathogenesis with a focus on the therapeutic approach to suggest potential goals for treating and monitoring this emerging zoonotic disease.
Keywords: coronaviruses; diagnosis; genome structure; pathogenesis; treatment.