Very recommendable, but the headline is way too alarmist! Stunning research into and images of our foe unraveling some of the minute dynamics of how this virus operates.
Human ingenuity eventually defeats any virus!
"... Many viruses have glycans covering their outer proteins, camouflaging them from the human immune system like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But last year, [researcher's] laboratory group and collaborators created the most detailed visualization yet of this coat, based on structural and genetic data and rendered atom-by-atom by a supercomputer. ...
In [researcher]’s simulation, when the RBD [receptor binding domain] lifted up above the glycan cloud, two glycans swooped in to lock it into place, like a kickstand on a bicycle. When [researcher] mutated the glycans in the computer model, the RBD collapsed. [researcher]’s team built a way to try the same experiment in the lab, and by June 2020, the collaborators had reported that mutating the two glycans reduced the ability of the spike protein to bind to a human cell receptor — a role that no one has previously recognized in coronaviruses ...
What has emerged from 19 months of work, backed by decades of coronavirus research, is a blow-by-blow account of how SARS-CoV-2 invades human cells (see ‘Life cycle of the pandemic coronavirus’). Scientists have discovered key adaptations that help the virus to grab on to human cells with surprising strength and then hide itself once inside. Later, as it leaves cells, SARS-CoV-2 executes a crucial processing step to prepare its particles for infecting even more human cells."
In [researcher]’s simulation, when the RBD [receptor binding domain] lifted up above the glycan cloud, two glycans swooped in to lock it into place, like a kickstand on a bicycle. When [researcher] mutated the glycans in the computer model, the RBD collapsed. [researcher]’s team built a way to try the same experiment in the lab, and by June 2020, the collaborators had reported that mutating the two glycans reduced the ability of the spike protein to bind to a human cell receptor — a role that no one has previously recognized in coronaviruses ...
What has emerged from 19 months of work, backed by decades of coronavirus research, is a blow-by-blow account of how SARS-CoV-2 invades human cells (see ‘Life cycle of the pandemic coronavirus’). Scientists have discovered key adaptations that help the virus to grab on to human cells with surprising strength and then hide itself once inside. Later, as it leaves cells, SARS-CoV-2 executes a crucial processing step to prepare its particles for infecting even more human cells."
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