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Scientists have discovered an important detail about the coronavirus
The researchers propose blocking the “molecular scissors” of the coronavirus, which will prevent it from replicating and the body will be able to fight the pathogen more effectively.
Scientists have discovered that the coronavirus uses “molecular scissors” without which it will not be able to multiply or turn off human proteins that are important for the immune response. This is reported in the results of a study by an international group of scientists from the United States and Poland, published in the journal ScienceAdvances.
It is noted that this is a weak point of SARS-CoV-2, which may become a target for new drugs.
“Molecular scissors” is the SARS-CoV-2-PLpro enzyme, which stimulates the release of proteins necessary for viral replication and also inhibits molecules such as cytokines and chemokines, which act as signals to activate the immune system to attack an infection. The enzyme cleaves ubiquitin and ISG15, disrupting their function.
As the researchers found, SARS-CoV-2-PLpro can be blocked with two inhibitors: VIR250 and VIR251. These compounds only recognize the coronavirus protein and do not respond to other similar proteins in the human body.
The way SARS-CoV-2-PLpro works distinguishes the new coronavirus from SARS-CoV-1 and MERS, which have similar enzymes. However, scientists do not know if this characteristic plays a decisive role in the fact that coronaviruses affect humans in different ways.
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