Bats were recently identified as natural reservoirs ot SARS-like coronavirus (SL-CoV) or SARS coronavirus-like virus.These viruses, together with SARS coronaviruses (SARS-CoV) isolated from human and palm civet, form a distinctive cluster within the group 2 coronaviruses of the genus Coronavirus, tentatively named group 2b (G2b-CoV).The bat G2b-CoV isolates have an identical genome organization and share an overall genome sequence identity of 88 to 92% among themselves, and between them and the human/civet isolates.