Shigeru Fujita

This study identifies key ACE2 residues that influence sarbecovirus infectivity in African Rhinolophus bats and reports novel ACE2 sequences from R. simulator and R. blasii.

This study experimentally infects horseshoe bats with SARS-CoV-2, showing low-level persistent viral replication without disease, and identifies host mechanisms that enable viral coexistence.

This study identifies the non-spike R204P mutation in the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron XEC variant as a driver of increased inflammation and pathogenicity through NF-κB activation.

This study identifies ACE2 diversity in horseshoe bats and shows bidirectional evolutionary shaping between ACE2 and sarbecovirus spike proteins.

This study investigates the ACE2 tropism of sarbecoviruses across 17 mammals using pseudovirus assays, structural analysis, and phylogenetics to identify genetic factors influencing host range.

This paper introduces CoVFit, a protein language model that predicts SARS-CoV-2 variant fitness using spike protein sequences, identifying fitness-enhancing mutations and predicting emerging variants.