1997 Article about the Coronavirus(ES)
THE MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF CORONAVIRUSES Michael M. C. Lai* and David Cavanaght
The word “big” is, perhaps, one of the first to come to mind when considering coronaviruses. The nature of the coronavirus genome- nonsegmented, single-stranded, positive-sense RNA- is not remark- able, but its size, 27 to 32kb,surely is when compared with other RNA viruses.
The coronavirus polymerase gene alone (20-22 kb) is about the same size as the whole of the picornavirus (-8 kb) and vesicular stomatitis virus (-11 kb) genomes added together. The gene encoding the large surface glycoprotein is up to 4.4 kb, encoding an imposing trimeric, highly glycosylated protein. This soars some 20 nm above the virion envelope, giving the virus the appearance-with a little imagination-of a crown or coronet (Latin corona, hence the name of the genus).
It’s 100 pages long but interesting that all was know about it in ‘97. It’s basically SARS all over again.
Sauce: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065352708602869?via%3Dihub
You’ll find a pdf link to the entire article when you scroll down.