The biology of coronaviruses, with special regards to SARS-CoV-2-and COVID-19

The authors review the recent literature about the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), that has been already confirmed to be present in 210 countries and territories in the world, causing a serious pandemic They describe the taxonomic relations of the coronaviruses with special regard to the human coronaviruses and the ones infecting domestic animals They present the genomic structure of the virus, the morphology of the virion as well as the main characteristics and function of the non-structural and the structural proteins They summarize the literature on the most recent studies regarding the receptor usage of the virus, which receptors are essential for its attachment to the target cells The authors describe in details the pathogenesis of the coronavirus disease, how the virus is able to suppress the innate immune system initially, and how will the infection turn into a severe disease upon the hyperfunction of the immune system and the overt release of proinflammatory citokines In the final sections they describe the characteristic clinical signs and pathological finding and also the most important aspects of the diagnostics