Questions tagged [coronavirus]
Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that cause disease in humans and animals. They are named for the crown-like spike proteins on their surface.
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Mutation profiles for Corona viruses in non-human hosts
In this question Mutation rate breakdown by original and mutated nucleotide for Coronaviridae mutation profiles for SARS-CoV-2 in humans are given. It is a known fact that mutation profiles are ...
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Why is China experiencing such a surge in acute cases of COVID?
The majority of western nations have lifted most if not all COVID restrictions, however we are not seeing a massive rise in serious cases of COVID-19.
Why is it different in China? Do they have a ...
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What exactly is bound by the control line on COVID19 antigen tests?
Clearly the test line binds some component of the coronavirus, I believe most commonly the nucleocapsid protein (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8049777/). However, despite extensive ...
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Does inactivated COVID vaccine also contain mRNA that is active in human body?
Inactivated vaccine primarily relies on proteins to elicit immune responses. My question is, does inactivated COVID vaccine also contain mRNA that could be actively transcribed into new proteins in ...
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Does the SARS-CoV2 spike protein passively diffuse through the nuclear pore complex?
I found this thread which is worth reviewing as context to my question(s) since there is some overlap in potential discussion, although it's concern is with mRNA ingress rather than spike protein.
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What is the median concentration of spike antigen in COVID positive patients?
I am searching for the plasma spike concentration in COVID patients. The closest possible reference I found claims that spike was only detectable in 5 of 64 COVID-19 positive patients.
However, their ...
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Amino Acid mutation profile for human coronavirus: Why is the mutation from T to I so frequent?
Still watching the emerging lineages of SARS-CoV2 I noticed that the amino acid mutation from threonine to isoleucine seems to be particularly frequent. Counting mutations in a lineage with a lot of ...
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Why can't SARS-CoV2 antigen lateral flow tests be used for testing animals?
Real use case:
Two male neutered Felis catus individuals live in a household where up to three humans live of which all were infected with SARS-CoV2 at the same time, proven by antigen and PCR tests. ...
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How are PCR tests for detecting COVID-19 performed on hamsters?
This is something I've been wondering about ever since the stories of people finding hamsters with a COVID infection in Hong Kong. Apparently those animals were tested using a PCR test, but I'm ...
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When and how did the Embecovirus acquire hemagglutinin esterase?
The Embecovirus is different from the rest of Betacoronavirus by possessing an additional protein, a hemagglutinin esterase (HE).
There are known similarities between the HE's of different viruses (...
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Rethinking SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV deadliness after lessons learned from SARS-CoV-2
SARS-CoV-1 case fatality rates were about 9% and MERS-CoV case fatality rates were over 30%.
And now there is a newly discovered MERS-CoV relative, which some scientists have warned may be only one or ...
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What protein(s) serve as the control antigen in Covid lateral flow tests? [duplicate]
Having recently been obliged to take a lateral flow test for Covid in order to fly from the UK, I idly wondered:
What is the control antigen for Covid lateral flow tests?
as (fortunately) that was ...
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Could hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) be used as a 'disinfectant' on hospital patients that are in contact with SARS-CoV-2?
Hydrogen peroxide kills harmful pathogens and various forms of bacteria by destroying their cell walls, through a process called oxidation. However, since SARS-CoV-2 is acellular; not composed of a ...
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What is the optimal temperature for Omicron to thrive in?
I have always been under the impression that when sick, you should let a fever run its course. The accepted answer to the question Why do people take drugs to lower a fever? seems to provide some ...
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Can Covid-19 virus be simply filtered out from infected patient’s blood? [closed]
Can Covid-19 virus be simply filtered out from infected patient’s blood?
If a Covid+ patient’s blood is passed through a filter, say 100 nm or a system of filters, 100 nm and 500 nm can we isolate the ...
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Does specific immunity affect the incubation period of viruses?
My interest was inspired by the observed variation in incubation times for different strains of Covid-19, however I ask the question in the broader sense as it seems hard to find an answer in general.
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How would a virus “evolve” if someone is infected with both the omicron and delta variants at the same time?
If someone is infected with both variants (let’s say within a day or two), what are some of the likely outcomes with respect to the virus “evolution”?
is it most likely that only 1 of the 2 variants ...
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How much of TLR 7 agonist is safe for human beings, as it is both linked to development of autoimmune diseases but is also used as Vaccine adjuvant?
This question is motivated by the fact that TLR 7 agonists have been linked to development and acceleration of Lupus-like disease both in animals and human beings. But at the same time, TLR 7 agonist ...
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How much do the COVID vaccines decrease the spread of SARS-CoV-2?
The vaccines targeted at COVID-19 are measured against their ability to reduce the occurrence of the disease, COVID-19 (The Vaccine Efficiency or VE). It does not measure its effect on the underlying ...
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Number of "mutations" in Omicron variant
Currently in the media they say that the Omicron variant has more than 30 "mutations", ie changes in spikes. I find this confusing, because the way I understand a single change in the virus ...
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Slightly different sequences returned by BLASTP
Probably this is very trivial but I am self-learning bioinformatics and I don't know who to ask for this kind of stuff. Also, apparently it is really hard to find information on general topics like ...
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Do spike-protein-based vaccines undermine the DNA repair system?
I ain't no biologist, but I came across a paper recently and tried to understand it:
SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination In Vitro
My question: Is it a correct ...
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Could Omicron be the variant of a variant?
I read that the newly discovered variant of Covid-19 has a higher number of mutations than the other variants. Isn't it more likely that it is the variant of a variant? It would be absolutely normal, ...
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Evolutionary pressure of vaccines towards a virus
I am trying to understand the following quote from one of the Twitter threads
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A change in the spike protein which allows the coronavirus to enter and infect human cells that is radical enough to ...
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Could Sars-CoV-2 vaccines make the immune response less effective against new variants?
Some viral diseases (e.g. influenza and dengue fever) are thought to exhibit original antigenic sin.
The immune system remembers viruses that it has been previously exposed to, allowing the body to ...
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Do mutations in a fundamental structure of a virus [Omicron Variant] make it more transmissible?
I am not a microbiologist, nor a virologist so I had a question - in the new Omicron virus variant, a large number of mutations were reported for the protein spike.
From my naïve understanding, the ...
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Can the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus mutate in people who have been fully vaccinated?
I am curious to know if the original SARS‑CoV‑2 virus, or any of its variants, can mutate in people who have been fully vaccinated. I am referring to those people who have received all the recommended ...
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How many of each structural component of SARS-CoV-2 are there?
I'm interested in the composition of SARS-CoV-2, including how many copies of each protein are present in an assembled virus, as well as the overall mass and density. There are a few recent papers ...
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New ORFs occurring in SARS-CoV-2 due to mutations
Are there examples of new ORFs in SARS-CoV-2 created by mutations?
The ORFs should not be present in the reference virus, but they should occur in a lineage occurring in the wild (at best, being part ...
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COVID-19 exposure risk from passing joggers versus walkers
What is the COVID exposure risk from passing close by someone who is jogging relative to passing close by someone who is walking?
The reason I ask is with regard to going out for exercise, or to run ...
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Are fully vaccinated people more likely to not get infected at all with COVID-19?
I've found some papers which describe that the viral shedding does not decrease during infection (for fully vaccinated people). But the overall shedding time does decrease. Therefore it is possible to ...
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Extensions of proteins in SARS-CoV-2 variants
What lineages of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 occurring in the wild show some extensions, i.e., mutations of the stop codons to codons encoding amino acids (mutations to another stop codon don't count ...
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Do the genes for external viral epitopes mutate faster than for viral machinery (e.g. Proteases)?
To fight SARS-COV-2 we use vaccines which train our immune system against viral epitopes like the external S(pike) protein. Since these structures change a lot, would it not have been a better idea to ...
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Coronavirus lineages with amino acid insertions
Is there an overview over SARS-CoV-2 lineages that have some insertions in their genomes? Tools based on GISAID sequences do not show them.
I am aware of a few lineages with insertions
Mu with S:...
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If you catch COVID-19, do you need to be vaccinated after recovery?
When we catch a cold, influenza, or COVID-19, the body starts to produce antibodies against them, so the body becomes immune for a period of time. That means one should not catch them again whilst ...
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How do the lipid nanoparticles in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines contain and release the mRNA payloads at the right time?
The engineering challenge with mRNA vaccines is that mRNA is fragile and degrades quickly. The solution, then, is to encapsulate the mRNA within lipid nanoparticles that carry the payload into cell.
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What antibody targets are being tested for in the publicly offered UK antibody test?
In late August 2021 the NHS (UK) offered people who test positive for COVID what is referred to in this BBC report as a “new antibody test”.
However, I have been unable to find out what exactly is new ...
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Can Covid's RNA be nullified by an opposite RNA strand?
Firstly, I have scant knowledge of biology, epidemiology, virology, and related fields. If my question seems nonsensical or bewildering, I beg your pardon. I'm not sure how to phrase this, but I'll ...
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How would a "synthetic defective interfering SARS-CoV-2" work in practice? Wouldn't it require a large fraction of all cells to be infected?
The abstract of A synthetic defective interfering SARS-CoV-2 is as follows.
Abstract
Viruses thrive by exploiting the cells they infect, but in order to replicate and infect other cells they must ...
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Safety of Covid-19 vaccine for pregnant women
Is there any possibility that the protein produced by COVID-19 mRNA vaccine taken into body could cause negative effect for unborn babies?
In particular, isn't it possible the protein could be used as ...
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How does the hydrophobic amino acid fuse the corona virus with the host cell membrane?
I am reading the article How the coronavirus infects cells — and why Delta is so dangerous.
It describes the fusion process of the virus into the host cell as follows right above an animation ...
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Viral vector vaccines - why doesn't the viral vector get attacked by the innate immune system?
I've been looking at how the Astrazeneca Covid-19 vaccine works:
A chimpanzee adenovirus (the viral vector) is injected into the patient.
After entering a cell, the viral DNA is deposited in the host ...
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delta coronavirus: Why isn't similar viral load in vaccinated people causing as severe adverse effects as in unvaccinated people?
In latest news, it is reported that:
if vaccinated people get infected anyway, they have as much virus in their bodies as unvaccinated people. That means they're as likely to infect someone else as ...
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What's happening in the "C" and "T" stripes of a covid test kit?
I have a COVID home test kit which produces C and T (control and test) stripes when the solution is applied to the strip. Something similar happens in pregnancy test kits.
I understand the purpose of ...
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Do breakthrough infections spread attenuated virus?
No vaccines are 100% effective, so it's possible that patient A catches Covid-19 even after receiving two doses of vaccine. I understand that the risk is low, and the symptoms will generally be mild.
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Recombinations between Distant coronaviruses
With recombination I mean long ones, say > 1000 nucleotides, so that the two parents must be coronaviruses and the two pieces of genomes must have compatible genomic coordinates for the recombinant ...
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Ingredients in Pfizer vaccine
The ingredients in the Pfizer vaccine have been listed in a number of websites, including government healthcare ones. This site claims that the list includes ALL of the ingredients of the vaccine. ...
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Which molecular changes make certain SARS‑CoV‑2 strains more contagious?
Articles often state that certain SAR-COV-2 strains are more transmissible, e.g:
Most studies indicate Delta is 50-60% more transmissible than the
Alpha variant
How dangerous are covid-19 Delta and ...
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Do mutations occur while growing virus for preparing inactivated viral vaccine?
The development of mutations in virus is reported to happen during replication, especially for an mRNA type virus like SARS-COV-2
Viruses that encode their genome in RNA, such as SARS-CoV-2, HIV and
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What determines the physical appearance of a tangible amount of bacteria or viruses?
As in the title, I was wondering how would feel an amount of one type of bacteria or virus, big enough to have a tangible size of the sample. What color, state (liquid, solid), textures, smell ecc. of ...
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