A team of researchers has apparently found the reason why the Sars-Cov-2 virus can be so dangerous to humans compared to other coronaviruses.
Lübeck / Kassel -
Coronaviruses have been known to mankind for more than 50 years and are usually harmless to humans.
The Sars-Cov-2 virus, on the other hand, can have drastic consequences for the body.
Researchers now presumably have an explanation for why this virus is more dangerous than common coronaviruses.
While common coronaviruses usually only trigger a harmless cold in people, so-called Sars coronaviruses, which were first discovered in 2002, lead to far more severe corona disease courses.
Corona: Research team discovers disease-causing properties of Sars-Cov-2
A research team from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) has now possibly succeeded in finding the reason for the increased disease-causing property
from Sars coronavirus to decipher.
According to the corona researcher Prof. Rolf Hilgenfeld from the University of Lübeck and private lecturer Dr.
Albrecht von Brunn from the Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität in Munich could be a mechanism that normal coronaviruses do not have, the trigger for the severe course of the disease as part of an infection with Sars-Cov-2.
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According to the scientists, coronaviruses other than Sars-Cov-2 do not have this mechanism, so this could be an explanation for the disproportionately higher disease-causing properties of the Sars viruses.
The scientists have already published their research success in the specialist journal EMBO Journal.
Investigations into Sars viruses: research teams compare coronaviruses
In their studies, the researchers compared RNA genomes of coronaviruses, which are harmless to humans, and that of the Sars virus.
In doing so, they came across a region that only appeared in the latter and was therefore called the “SARS-unique domain” (SUD).
Such gene regions and their protein products could, according to the research teams around Hilgenfeld and Brunn, be the reason why the Covid-19 virus Sars-Cov-2 can be so dangerous for people and lead to serious corona diseases.
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Coronaviruses: researchers decipher interactions
Because, according to the findings of the scientists, there is an interaction with the human protein Paip-1 between the “SARS unique domain” (SUD) and the proteins it produces.
The existence of the SUD and its interaction with Paip-1 are basically not new findings, but the researchers were able to break down the mentioned interaction even more precisely.
"Such interaction studies between coronavirus proteins and proteins of the infected human cell will help us to understand how the viruses make use of key functions of the host cell," explained Hilgenfeld with reference to the new research results. Further information on the current corona situation in Germany is available in our news ticker. (Helena Gries)
