Coronavirus envelope protein: current knowledge
Coronaviruses (CoVs) primarily cause enzootic infections in birds and mammals but, in the last few decades, have shown to be capable of infecting humans as well.
The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and, more recently, Middle-East respiratory syndrome (MERS) has demonstrated the lethality of CoVs when they cross the species barrier and infect humans.