Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't the "compiler" be the bioreactor used to mass-produce it and the "installer" be the lipid encapsulation? :)
Maybe the booster shot can be done with a simple apt-get update.
a fellow linux user. ubuntu?
Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
221–230 of 389 posts
Re: Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I have a "I'm sure that means something to somebody" feeling. Break it down! It's not so bad: > A composition A bunch of stuff > a messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) mRNA are cellular instructions on how to make proteins that are read by ribosomes that make those proteins as they read along. > an open reading frame This is something that starts with a "start codon" and ends with an "ending codon" and encodes valid i…
Why haven’t viruses or bacteria evolved to use a lipid nano particle to evade the immune system? Seems like a big security flaw in our cells?
If you squint you could say that viruses are already doing that. A lipid bilayer is a key component of several kinds of membranes. All of our cells have a lipid bilayers separating the inside from the outside. The corona virus is also built from these same lipids, which is why it's vulnerable to soap.
Anyway, I think the important thing that the other commenter was saying is that mRNA needs to be carefully packaged to be medically useful. You can't inject pure RNA as a vaccine because not only is the mRNA going to be quickly degraded before it gets anywhere but if the immune system sees any RNA floating around by then it kicks itself into a frenzy because free-floating RNA is usually a sign that something nasty is afoot.
Re: Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I have a "I'm sure that means something to somebody" feeling. Break it down! It's not so bad: > A composition A bunch of stuff > a messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) mRNA are cellular instructions on how to make proteins that are read by ribosomes that make those proteins as they read along. > an open reading frame This is something that starts with a "start codon" and ends with an "ending codon" and encodes valid i…
Why haven’t viruses or bacteria evolved to use a lipid nano particle to evade the immune system? Seems like a big security flaw in our cells?
Re: Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
#224If my little knowledge from biology class serves me correct, RNA uses Udenine instead of Thymine. But in this document it uses T. Can somebody explain to me why?
RNA uses uracil/uridine rather than thymine, but uridine is actually quite immunogenic. That's what has prevented people from using mRNA as a therapy until recently, when the founders of BioNTech figured out that they could use pseudouridine (abbreviated as Ψ) instead. See [1] for more information.
[1]https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mrna-coronavirus-vaccine-pfi...
Re: Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
#225The lipid container is weird to me. Is that all it takes to send instructions inside a cell? Seems like a security hole. Why haven’t viruses evolved to have a lipid container?
I was going to say you can't get very far without a protein vehicle, but then I remembered that's quite incorrect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrotransposon
The injection is important, however, as it gets the genetic material past a whole lot of nucleases that cover your epithelia.
Re: Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
#226I'm sure it's more complex than I grasp as a layperson, but I'm utterly amazed at how simple this _appears_. I get the feeling that this is something I have a better chance of understanding than the average SaaS Terms and Conditions. I expected to have to scroll through pages upon pages of indecipherable text. Instead it's no bigger than a large paragraph of text, and I can easily fit it on my screen.
The protein they're trying to manufacture is indeed quite simple - AFAIU both BioNTech and Moderna put together their sequences in a weekend. (Though there was a more involved process of winnowing down the sequences for the most effective ones.) The technically challenging parts are: - delivery mechanism: you need to take a very unstable molecule, protect it from the environment - both external, and when inside the p…
> but testing the thing for safety and efficacy took months
What kind of tweaks were made from "the version they threw together in a weekend" to "the version that is in production now"? What's a typical "mRNA" feedback iteration loop like?
Re: Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meh, they probably just used lipofectamine (which has been around since the 90s) or something very similar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipofectamine https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/brands/product-brand...
lipofectamine is used for in vitro transfection, not in vivo gene delivery. The vaccines use lipid nanoparticles rather than liposomes
If they didn't use lipofectamine, what did they most likely use?
Re: Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
#228So what moves the new protein out of your cells once the rna is processed? Don’t most proteins stay inside the cell?
There is a system that transports protein fragments to the cell surface and “presents” them to the immune cells: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigen_presentation
Re: Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I have a "I'm sure that means something to somebody" feeling. Break it down! It's not so bad: > A composition A bunch of stuff > a messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) mRNA are cellular instructions on how to make proteins that are read by ribosomes that make those proteins as they read along. > an open reading frame This is something that starts with a "start codon" and ends with an "ending codon" and encodes valid i…
Why haven’t viruses or bacteria evolved to use a lipid nano particle to evade the immune system? Seems like a big security flaw in our cells?
Maybe those lipid particles are too unstable if they are not spiked with various proteins?
Moderna vaccine has to be kept in -70 C. Viruses that can survive for any extended period of time only in -70 C won't find many hosts.
Also maybe the process of creating virus shell can't naturally be done without protein scaffold.
Re: Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]
#230So what moves the new protein out of your cells once the rna is processed? Don’t most proteins stay inside the cell?
There is a system that transports protein fragments to the cell surface and “presents” them to the immune cells: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigen_presentation
Thanks. So what makes that happen in this case? Is it because internally the cell doesn’t recognize the protein? Or it does this for all proteins it makes? Does say some hemoglobin get transported to the cell surface?