The covid? A “Perfect” virus for humans. Australian discovery
An Australian team of researchers has published a new study showing that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, appears to be specifically adapted to attack human cells, according to the Daily Telegraph .
Professor Nikolai Petrovsky of Flinders University, a researcher on vaccine treatments, has discovered, together with an Australian team, that Covid-19 is uniquely adapted to attack human cells.
Scientists from Flinders University and La Trobe used powerful computers to model protein receptors in a number of animal species to see how the coronavirus spike protein connects in other animal species.
The theory they wanted tested was that if the protein suited an animal species better, it could have been the bridge between the animal world and man.
The problem was that the computer model used to study the Spike protein only suited humans perfectly.
" Computer modeling found that the virus' ability to bind to the bat's ACE2 protein was poor compared to its ability to bind human cells, " said epidemiologist Petrovsky, adding " This argues against transmitting the virus directly from bats to humans “.
" So if the virus has a natural source, it could only have reached humans through an intermediate species that has yet to be found ."
Other animals found relatively susceptible to infection include pangolins, dogs and cats, all of which are excluded as intermediate species between bats and humans.
RMSD of the overlap of the RBD protein S complex (pink = with pangolin and turquoise = with human) with human ACE2 (red) or pangolin ACE2 (blue) after MD simulation showing the different geometry of the two complexes.
“ Overall, putting aside the interesting results of pangolin ACE2, our study showed that the COVID-19 virus was very well adapted to infect humans, ” said Professor Petrovsky.
The findings lend more weight to the laboratory's theory of origin, which postulates that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were infected with SARS-CoV-2 and inadvertently spread the disease, or that it was released intentionally. The virus is poorly compatible with the receptors of the animal that should have been the origin, but, coincidentally, it is extremely compatible with humans. How is this possible without genetic manipulation?
The Australian team report is available in Scientific Reports .
Thanks to our Telegram channel you can stay updated on the publication of new articles of Economic Scenarios.
The article The covid? A "Perfect" virus for humans. Australian Discovery comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/146455-2/ on Tue, 29 Jun 2021 10:52:32 +0000.