los angeles humans are not the only species facing a potential threat from the novel coronavirus that causes covid19 according to a new study which says several critically endangered primates such as the western lowland gorilla sumatran orangutan and northern whitecheeked gibbon may be susceptible to infection with the virusscientists including those from the university of california uc davis in the us used genomic analysis to compare the structure of the ace2 receptor protein which the novel coronavirus uses to enter cells across 410 different species of vertebrates including birds fish amphibians reptiles and mammalsaccording to the study published in the journal pnas ace2 is normally found in many different types of cells and tissues including the cells lining the outer layer of the nose mouth and lungsof the amino acid building blocks which make up ace2 the scientists said 25 of these molecules in the protein are important for the novel coronavirus sarscov2 to bind and gain entry into human cellsin the study they used the sequence of these 25 amino acid molecules assessed how they interact with each other and modelled its predicted protein structureusing this model the researchers evaluated how many of the 25 amino acids are found in the ace2 protein of the different speciesanimals with all 25 amino acid residues matching the human protein are predicted to be at the highest risk for contracting sarscov2 via ace2 said joana damas a coauthor of the study from uc davisthe risk is predicted to decrease the more the species ace2 binding residues differ from humans damas saidaccording to the researchers about 40 per cent of the species potentially susceptible to sarscov2 are classified as threatened by the international union for conservation of nature and may be especially vulnerable to humantoanimal transmissionthe data provide an important starting point for identifying vulnerable and threatened animal populations at risk of sarscov2 infection said harris lewin lead author of the study from uc daviswe hope it inspires practices that protect both animal and human health during the pandemic lewin saidthe study noted that several critically endangered primate species such as the western lowland gorilla sumatran orangutan and northern whitecheeked gibbon are predicted to be at very high risk of infection by the novel coronavirusit said marine mammals such as gray whales and bottlenose dolphins as well as chinese hamsters are also at high risk of catching the virusamong domestic animals the scientists said cats cattle and sheep were found to have a medium risk while dogs horses and pigs have low risk for the virus binding to their ace2 receptorsthese species represent an opportunity for spillover of sarscov2 from humans to other susceptible animals given the limited infectivity data for the species studied we urge caution not to overinterpret the predictions of the present study the scientists wrotethey cautioned that it is yet to be determined how this relates to infection and disease risk but said for the species with known infectivity data this correlation is highin documented cases of