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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

#101

Post by anonymouskimmer »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #90
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With mRNA vaccines we get the cells to produce the protein. Does this imply that synthesis of the spike protein is difficult, or is it that administration is? It's that the mechanism of production of spike (inside infected cells) parallels the mechanism of production of spike protein in a natural infection. This stimulates the immune response against spike without need for additional adjuvants. > This then begs the…

Thank you for the response. This makes sense. As for the second segment. I only have more questions now. Could it be that requesting that the cells produce additional proteins of a particular kind "overloads" them or simply "asks too much" in a fashion similar to a virus? That seems unlikely unless the administered medication is simply "too much". I wonder, is there a saturation point? ie a point where additional mRN…

I'm not a virologist, and this is taxing to my memory, so it will be a bit more basic than you might prefer, and won't be as accurate.

> Could it be that requesting that the cells produce additional proteins of a particular kind "overloads" them or simply "asks too much" in a fashion similar to a virus?

It could be. I believe that most of the cells that express from the mRNA vaccine do indeed die (from the immune response against them). I'm not positive about this though. In general if a cell is preferentially producing protein from a particular mRNA it doesn't have to resources left to do what is expected of it (including cellular maintenance).

> then what is causing cells to explode due to virus replication?

https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_Gene... "During release, the newly-created viruses are released from the host cell, either by causing the cell to break apart, waiting for the cell to die, or by budding off through the cell membrane."

According to the video below it can be caused by crowding. I think it can also be caused by virus proteins, or an apoptotic response - programmed cell death done to hinder the viruses ability to replicate more infectious particles. Often enough the cell does not burst, but simply buds off new virus. This is still very detrimental because the cell isn't doing what it is supposed to do, instead having been hijacked to create new viruses.

> If so, have we encountered a virus that "opens up" a cell without damaging it and eventually becomes parasitic to the host?

What I'm going to say won't directly answer your question, but it will answer the question you would have had if you knew a bit more. You want to look up lytic versus lysogenic viral replication. A basic overview: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/high-school-biology/hs-h...

A more general overview of viruses linking directly to the part talking about retroviruses (the most common route of viral lysogens in animals): https://bio.libretexts.org/Courses/Mansfield_University_of_P...

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#102

Post by anonymouskimmer »

gadders wrote: post #94
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

And yet a minority of obese people had no problem with COVID.

To be consistent I hope you also don't accept health advice from seriously underweight people either.

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#103

Post by anonymouskimmer »

gadders wrote: post #95
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I wasn't responding to you.

But sure, as a fat person who, as far as I know hasn't ever had COVID, I think my advice is pretty good.

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#104

Post by technimad »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #38
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…

Sometimes I think I'm the only low risk person left on the planet wearing a mask and vaccinating. Then I see old folks or one 30y/o woman in the supermarket wearing a mask, and I remember that this protects them too. There's even some performers asking fans to mask up so high risk people can come to their shows. Gives me a tiny glimmer of hope for humanity.

Honest question: why are you vaccinating while you also identify as low risk?

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#105

Post by anigbrowl »

gadders wrote: post #96
standeven wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Say the line, Bart.

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#106

Post by anonymouskimmer »

photochemsyn wrote: post #100
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-o…

Sarbecoronaviruses are a subset of betacoronaviruses. And I seriously doubt we have a comprehensive sequence database of all sarbecoronaviruses. If furin cleavage sites are present in about 21% of alpha- and betacoronaviruses I would expect they would also be present in a minority of most lineages within these clades. "Furin cleavage sites are also found in certain bat-origin MERS-like merbecovirises"

> 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.

Two would be enough. And we know that happens already (ala XBB, deltacron, etcetera).

> > "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."

This is interesting, indeed. I wonder why an engineered site wouldn't use the prototypical cleavage motif, instead using one that might need (if I'm reading the quote correctly) a leading proline residue in order to promote cleavage?

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#107

Post by anigbrowl »

qup wrote: post #63
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wear an N95 when I go out but only my regular glasses. I too haven't been sick since January 2020. I used to get colds pretty much quarterly, and so it's absolutely worth it to me. If it bothers someone else to see me wearing one that's their problem, I'm not asking them to wear one.

Has it bothered anyone?

It certainly bothers the person(s) who left 'Mask off!' graffiti all over my neighborhood.

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#108

Post by don_neufeld »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #80
don_neufeld wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to get them more than yearly, usually 3x or more per year, some of them were pretty brutal (Really bad coughs, fevers, night sweats, up to a week of PTO to recover) I have masked every time I leave the house since COVID started impacting Wuhan (we had Chinese operations, so saw early impact on the business side. If you saw me masking on BART in early 2020, wave ) and I haven’t gotten a single illness of any ty…

> if you saw me masking on BART in early 2020, wave Which line, what time? :) I only started riding BART in late 2019, so only had a few months of it before stopping. I'm sure I would have been ill more often than yearly if my ridership had continued. I agree. Additionally the masks will more than pay for themselves when it comes time to cash out my accumulated sick leave when I leave this job.

Orinda to New Montgomery, I used to start commute around 7:30, otherwise you couldn’t get a parking stop at Orinda.

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#109

Post by anonymouskimmer »

don_neufeld wrote: post #108
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you saw me masking on BART in early 2020, wave Which line, what time? :) I only started riding BART in late 2019, so only had a few months of it before stopping. I'm sure I would have been ill more often than yearly if my ridership had continued. I agree. Additionally the masks will more than pay for themselves when it comes time to cash out my accumulated sick leave when I leave this job.

Orinda to New Montgomery, I used to start commute around 7:30, otherwise you couldn’t get a parking stop at Orinda.

You were about half an hour later than me on the way out, and we only overlapped through Orinda to Rockridge. I usually got the 2:something on the way back, and by then it was crowded enough I'm sure I wouldn't have seen you even if we were in the same car.

Re: Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection

#110

Post by slaw »

gadders wrote: post #87
TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some masks do work. https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/respiratory-protection-us/produc...

If you or someone in your family is immuno-suppressed, have at it. Otherwise in terms of risk avoidance you might as well start wearing a crash helmet when you ride the bus just in case.

I like the idea of wearing full face motorcycle helmet in a bus.
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