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I would also note that the author explicitly does not think it's a spillover event from an introduction to an animal population that later re-entered the human
by f38zf5vdt 5y ago
I would also note that the author explicitly does not think it's a spillover event from an introduction to an animal population that later re-entered the human population. The reason being there is a small insertion of complementary RNA from humans that was injected into the virus.
I disagree. The small chunk of the sequence that had been inserted is present in RNA for all primates. It's possible that it was introduced to primates, circulated, and then was re-introduced to humans.
- mtmail 5y agoI can't find any mention of animal RNA in the twitter thread. Is that mentioned in another thread or deeper in linked documents?
- f38zf5vdt 5y ago> The presence of host derived RNA insertion from the TMEM245 gene (https://virological.org/t/putative-host-origins-of-rna-insertions-in-sars-cov-2-genomes/761 https://virological.org/t/putative-host-origins-of-rna-inser...) would argue for evolution within human population. Otherwise I would have had this spillback from animal population on the list of hypotheses. https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1464359663282049038 https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1464359663282049038 TMEM245 is a conserved chunk of mRNA in primates.
- mtmail 5y agoThanks a lot. Your objection to the statement also makes sense.
- moistly 5y agoAlso possible that it incubated in someone for nearly a year. While reading Omicron news a couple days ago, there was mention of an immune-suppressed individual who was found positive 260 days after initial infection.