Virus That Causes Covid-19 Puts A Plug In Cellular Defenses
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
One of the novel coronavirus' most insidious tricks is that it can block the ability of cells to produce protective proteins without hindering its own ability to replicate.
Now, a multidisciplinary team of Yale researchers has discovered how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, accomplishes this trick by blocking production of cellular proteins, including immune molecules, and contributes to severe illness in its host.
"The virus essentially reprograms host cells, and by understanding this mechanism we can hopefully design new therapeutics,'' said Yong Xiong, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and co-corresponding author of the research published in the journal Molecular Cell.
[...] However, it remains unknown how the virus is still able to produce its own proteins, using the same ribosome, to replicate in the cell after it disables the cell's ability to make normal proteins, Xiong said.
Journal Reference:
Shuai Yuan, Lei Peng, Jonathan J. Park, Yingxia Hu, Swapnil C. Devarkar, Matthew B. Dong, Qi Shen, Shenping Wu, Sidi Chen, Ivan B. Lomakin, Yong Xiong. Nonstructural protein 1 of SARS-CoV-2 is a potent pathogenicity factor redirecting host protein synthesis machinery toward viral RNA.. Molecular Cell, 2020; DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2020.10.034
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