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Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

sydney.edu.au

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Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#91

Post by genewitch »

atomicUpdate wrote: post #74

> “For me, as an immunologist, the fact that there's this natural immune receptor that we didn't know about, that's lining our lungs and blocks and controls virus, that's crazy interesting. So natural immunity is a real thing.

In February or March of 2020 there were two interesting and not well distributed studies. That of immunity of heavy smokers - and/or those who were heavy smokers but had quit, and the other was about the effects of hibiscus on the mucosal lining of the lungs preventing respiratory infection.

I'm overburdened right now, I can't deal with any more COVID studies. But when I read the title and seeing some comments I wonder if the prior art is related.

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#92

Post by JoeAltmaier »

gadders wrote: post #60
AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer: covid averse, lost family member, upset with society for “being done.”) I’m not sure what to think about this. A year+ ago, I would have worried that folks would treat a low-risk evaluation as a permission slip to say “the pandemic is over for me,” stop masking/etc, and thus increase the aggregate spread of the virus to folks who are high risk. But now everyone is already doing that anyway. So yeah, it w…

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Does that measure epidemic-spread-rate somehow?

I understood masks were not about making you proof against infection, but instead for slowing the spread so hospitals could respond. That's the critical measure of mask effectiveness.

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#94

Post by gadders »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #88
gadders wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/overweight-and-healthy-t... "Carrying too many pounds is a solid signal of current or future health problems. But not for everyone. Some people who are overweight or obese mange to escape the usual hazards, at least temporarily. This weight subgroup has even earned its own moniker—metabolically healthy obesity." "But some people who are overweight or obese manage to avoid these cha…

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Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#95

Post by gadders »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #85
jasonhansel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people complain about prejudice against fat people, this is what they mean. I fail to understand why someone's size would make their advice less credible, particularly on topics other than weight loss. If anything, being at higher risk would dispose them to take the virus more seriously. After all, "trying to eat healthy" is rarely successful. The vast majority of dieters do not succeed in achieving long-term we…

> particularly on topics other than weight loss. Fat people have often tried a variety of weight loss techniques. Their advice is liable to be more pertinent than a skinny person who has trouble gaining weight.

More pertinent in regards to COVID?

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#96

Post by gadders »

standeven wrote: post #84
gadders wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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It always amazes me when someone ignores the 99 studies that show masks are effective, and highlights the one that says maybe they’re not. Cherry picking in action! Just one of the literally hundreds of studies showing effectiveness: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7883189/

Is this meant to be irony? You seem to have not read the link. It's a meta-review of 78 randomised control trials. It is literally the opposite of cherry picking.

You then cherry pick one review saying the opposite.

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#97

Post by anonuser123456 »

superkuh wrote: post #8

That's good. But the lower lungs already get seepage of body serum/humoral igM and igG. If you really want to protect against infections then you have to induce mucosal immunity (and get tissue resident B and T cells) in the surface layer of the upper respiratory. Unfortunately intramuscular vaccinations do not do that, they only give serum/humoral immunity. So they're only the first step to protect against serious d…

I think the situation is a little more complex than this. I recommend reading https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(2...

In short, we have to consider that other viruses like OC43 and HKU1 either do not have durable mucosal responses, or the response of the immune system is to slow for the viral dynamics of some viruses.

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#98

Post by barbazoo »

sokoloff wrote: post #49
barbazoo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isolating and denying effective schooling to every kid who comes down with a one-day mild illness for ten days does not seem like a risk-proportionate response to me. Example had COVID, not a one-day mild illness so it might affect other children worse than the kid. I'd like to know what the negative effect of that really is, my gut feeling is that it's zero. People often make it sound like they end up insufficient…

> Example had COVID, not a one-day mild illness Unless we are doubting the description of the parent, example had mild illness (the patient's experience of ill health) for less than one day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34752442

Tested positive for COVID

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#99

Post by sokoloff »

barbazoo wrote: post #98
sokoloff wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Example had COVID, not a one-day mild illness Unless we are doubting the description of the parent, example had mild illness (the patient's experience of ill health) for less than one day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34752442

Tested positive for COVID

I'm not sure what point you're making there. COVID is the disease. SARS-CoV2 is the pathogen. That patient's individual experience is their illness.

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#100

Post by photochemsyn »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #57
photochemsyn wrote: post #48

There do seem to be some alternative views on the role of this protein, LRRC15, in the lungs with respect to Sars-CoV-2. See this other paper (Feb 3 2023): https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou... Just to cover the basics, the virus normally accesses cells by binding to ACE2. > "The interactions between Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and human host factors enable t…

Those are interesting earlier results about LRRC15. The effect of its expression may be dose dependent, with lower levels of LRRC15 promoting infection (or the negative effects of fibrosis) and higher levels inhibiting infection. It also shows that what happens in cell culture doesn't necessarily translate to in vivo . > Accounting for the appearance of this furin cleavage site is a problem for anyone promoting a 'na…

As I understand it, that lineage of coronaviruses is quite distinct from the sarbecoronavirus lineage and they don't generally infect the same host species in the same geographical regions:

> "For coronaviruses, furin cleavage sites at the interface of the S1 and S2 domain are not unusual, being found widely in betacoronaviruses in the embeco lineage (which are considered to be of rodent origin) as well as in avian-origin gammacoronaviruses and certain feline and canine alphacoronaviruses (with an unknown origin). Furin cleavage sites are also found in certain bat-origin MERS-like merbecovirises, but not—with the exception of SARS-CoV-2—in the sarbecovirus lineage."

For such a specific motif to arise naturally seems to require a scenario like multiple infection of a host species by several different wild-type coronaviruses.

Then there's this feature:

> "So far, a viable natural origin for the SARS-CoV-2 S1–S2 site through recombination or mutation of a bat-origin virus has proved to be elusive. Of note, the S1–S2 cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2 S does not comprise the pattern found in prototypical furin cleavage sites (it is RRxR and not RxK/RR),8 making its origin enigmatic. One feature of the S1–S2 junction for the SARS-CoV-2 spike from the original outbreak is the presence of a leading proline residue, which might have promoted furin cleavage."

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5...

At this point, the lab-accident-theory looks more likely than the natural-origin-theory.

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