I'm married to a doctor and have had some brief discussions about nCov with her over the past few weeks. This typically means sending her an article to have to explain it to me (not the case here).
Here is my non-doctor take in non-doctor words - and possibly wrong. I've tried to source where possible.
* Betacoronaviruses have four lineages (A-D). This is actually sourced. [0]
* 2019-nCov is lineage B, which is the same as original SARS. MERS is lineage C. This is sourced as well. [0]
* 2019-nCov has a "furin-like" cleavage site, which other lineage B betacoronaviruses do not. Sourced as the article for this thread.
* I believe a cleavage site plays a role in how a virus binds to and enters a cell. Personal interpretation - could be wrong.
* Based on Wikipedia, "Furin". I believe this means either (1) that the 2019-nCov has a cleavage site that requires modification to activate or (2) 2019-nCov has a cleavage site that resembles the human FURIN gene. I'm clearly out of my territory on this statement so fact check it yourself.
* People developing treatments should consider this "furin-like" cleavage site for therapies as they "may" have implications on the virus lifecycle. From the source article.
My personal take is identifying viruses treatments is a bit like writing a very complex pattern match in software. It needs to be specific enough to not kill good cells, but general enough handle uniqueness among individual virus cells.
This articles seems to be identifying a unique pattern within 2019-nCov that people developing treatments should consider this. It may also be suggesting that the "unique" factor is hidden in some way.
----
What that means for any of us on Hacker News? I don't know.
Here is my non-doctor take in non-doctor words - and possibly wrong. I've tried to source where possible.
* Betacoronaviruses have four lineages (A-D). This is actually sourced. [0]
* 2019-nCov is lineage B, which is the same as original SARS. MERS is lineage C. This is sourced as well. [0]
* 2019-nCov has a "furin-like" cleavage site, which other lineage B betacoronaviruses do not. Sourced as the article for this thread.
* I believe a cleavage site plays a role in how a virus binds to and enters a cell. Personal interpretation - could be wrong.
* Based on Wikipedia, "Furin". I believe this means either (1) that the 2019-nCov has a cleavage site that requires modification to activate or (2) 2019-nCov has a cleavage site that resembles the human FURIN gene. I'm clearly out of my territory on this statement so fact check it yourself.
* People developing treatments should consider this "furin-like" cleavage site for therapies as they "may" have implications on the virus lifecycle. From the source article.
[0]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0688-y
-----
My personal take is identifying viruses treatments is a bit like writing a very complex pattern match in software. It needs to be specific enough to not kill good cells, but general enough handle uniqueness among individual virus cells.
This articles seems to be identifying a unique pattern within 2019-nCov that people developing treatments should consider this. It may also be suggesting that the "unique" factor is hidden in some way.
----
What that means for any of us on Hacker News? I don't know.