SARS virus - a product of genetic engineering?

SARS virus - a product of genetic engineering? Two scientists who have genetic engineered coronaviruses in their laboratories, Holmes and Enjuanes, suggested in a commentary in the journal Science that the SARS virus probably "evolved separately from an ancestor of the known coronavirus, and infected an unidentified animal, bird, or reptile host for a very long time before infecting humans and starting the SARS epidemic." (p.1377) Following soon afterwards, there was a claim that the SARS virus came from the masked civet cat in south China. But that claim could not be substantiated. An alternative hypothesis entertained in the mainstream journals was that the virus came from outerspace. There are very unusual features to the SARS virus. Its sequence most closely matches that of mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) and Bovine corona virus (BCV), both in group 3. The match is quite good in the middle third of the genome that’s nearly 30 000nt long, and not good at all for the first third or last third of the sequence. But, antibodies to the SARS virus cross react with FIPV, HuCV229E and TGEV, all in Group 1. And the SARS virus can grow in Vero green monkey kidney cells, which no other coronavirus can, with the exception of PEDV, another virus in Group 1. Could the SARS virus have come from genetic engineering? This is a question that Ho and Cummins have put to the scientific community. So far, we have not had a proper reply. Holmes and Enjuanes stated in their commentary, "SARS-CoV is also unlikely to have been created from known coronaviruses by genetic engineering, because at present it would be impossible to modify 50% of a coronavirus genome without abrogating viral infectivity." (p.1377) http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SVGE.php