PTI | | Posted by Krishna Priya PallaviWashington
The SARS-CoV-2 virus still highly transmissible between mammals, according to a study based on computer simulations. Researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), USA, have found that coronaviruses use their spike proteins – which help them infect cells – to attach themselves to host cells in both bats and humans in the same way.
The findings, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, show how viral spike protein in some SARS-CoV-2 . variantss interacts with host cell receptors known as ACE2 in both humans and many bat species of the genus Rhinolophus.
Associate Professor Gregory Babbitt from RIT said: “We expected to see a really interesting adaptive evolution that occurs as viruses get used to humans and less to bats, but we did seeing that not much has changed”. (Also read | Severe asthma attacks double after Covid-19: Study)
“Because this binding site hasn’t developed much, there’s really not much stopping it from human to bat transmission“, Babbit said in a statement.
Scientists believe that bats first transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to humans in December 2019, and since then the virus has evolved into several variants such as Delta and Omicron.
Research suggests that interspecies transmission is fairly common, and the literature has shown that there is a lot of evidence of that.
The researchers used a computer simulation method called molecular dynamics to put the proteins in a solvation simulation and then watch them move.
This method uses high-performance computing on the graphics processor to show what every atom does over time.
This method allows scientists to study questions that cannot be answered in a traditional laboratory, Babbitt says.
Babbitt added: “It would be dangerous to do experiments in which we reinfect bats with human strains of the virus, so our computer-based simulations offered an alternative. much safer.” PTI SAR SAR
This story was published from the wire dealer’s feed without text modification. Only the title has been changed.
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