3 ms·
Despite a foray into chemistry in my past I find this article prohibitively difficult to fully internalize beyond a superficial understanding and I would really
by datameta 6y ago
Despite a foray into chemistry in my past I find this article prohibitively difficult to fully internalize beyond a superficial understanding and I would really appreciate it if someone in the field could explain what the study shows.
- kalaido 6y agoThis also means vaccines targeting the S Protein don’t always work?
- DrAwdeOccarim 6y agoThe most important thing in biology/biochemistry to realize is that everything that happens requires things to bump into each other, many times, randomly. If things fit/stick to each other really well (think lock and key fitting, glove to hand idea), they only need to bump into each other a couple time before they lock together. This study shows that a thing on the virus sticks to a thing on a cell (Neuropillin-1) really well. What this does is then keep the virus really close to the cell so it can bump into the other thing (ACE2) more often. This is important because ACE2 is how the virus gets into the cell. So the first thing (Neuropillin-1 binding) sticks the virus to the cell and gives it more time to find the entry switch (ACE2). Without that first binding (from Neuropillin-1), the number of times the virus bumps into ACE2 is not a lot because there isn't much of it on the cells.
- sradman 6y agoThe spike of the SARS-CoV-2 virus binds to the neuropilin-1 (NRP1) [1] cell receptor in addition to ACE2 [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropilin_1#Role_in_COVID-19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropilin_1#Role_in_COVID-19 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiotensin-converting_enzyme_2#Coronavirus_entry_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiotensin-converting_enzyme_...