{"id":37250,"date":"2020-02-21T01:37:02","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T07:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=37250"},"modified":"2020-02-21T01:37:02","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T07:37:02","slug":"37250","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=37250","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-sg\/news\/other\/coronavirus-up-to-20-times-more-likely-than-sars-to-bind-to-human-cells-study-suggests\/ar-BB1073bY\">Coronavirus up to 20 times more likely than Sars to bind to human cells, study suggests<\/a><\/p>\n<p>That means &#8216;more contagious&#8217;.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>New strain appears to be more readily transmitted from human to human than Sars, Texas researchers find<\/li>\n<li>Further studies needed to explore human host cells\u2019 role in spread between people, the report says<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The deadly new\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/coronavirus-outbreak\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-id=\"49\" data-m=\"{&quot;i&quot;:49,&quot;p&quot;:46,&quot;n&quot;:&quot;partnerLink&quot;,&quot;y&quot;:24,&quot;o&quot;:3}\">coronavirus<\/a>\u00a0is up to 20 times more likely to bind to human cell receptors and cause infection than severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), a new study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin has found.<\/p>\n<p>The novel coronavirus and Sars share the same functional host-cell receptor, called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2).<\/p>\n<div id=\"unruly_outstream_article\" data-id=\"48\" data-m=\"{&quot;i&quot;:48,&quot;p&quot;:46,&quot;n&quot;:&quot;unruly-article-inlineOutstreamAd&quot;,&quot;t&quot;:&quot;UnrulyInlineOutstreamAd&quot;,&quot;o&quot;:2}\" data-siteid=\"1081260\" data-muid=\"28150F0F94106B462E60017895EC6AE8\" data-rid=\"bd3c80ab4a3043babaf00aba13dff390\" data-providerid=\"\"><\/div>\n<p>The report, published on the website bioRxiv on Saturday, said the new coronavirus had around 10 to 20-fold higher affinity \u2013 the degree to which a substance tends to combine with another \u2013 for human ACE2 compared with Sars.<\/p>\n<p>But the researchers added that further studies were needed to explore the human host-cell receptor\u2019s role in helping the new virus to spread from person to person.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCompared with SARS-CoV, 2019-nCoV appears to be more readily transmitted from human to human,\u201d the report of the study said. \u201cThe high affinity of 2019-nCoV S for human ACE2 may contribute to the apparent ease with which 2019-nCoV can spread from human to human.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The disease caused by the new coronavirus, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) has named Covid-19, has killed more than 1,800 people and infected over 70,000 worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>The number of Covid-19 deaths is more than double the global figure of 813 attributed by the WHO to the Sars epidemic of 2002-03.<\/p>\n<p>The new study found that although the novel coronavirus\u2019 receptor-binding domain (RBD) had a relatively similar structure to that of Sars, it did not have appreciable binding to three published Sars RBD-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), which are copies of one type of antibody used to neutralise pathogens.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers said this suggested antibody cross-reactivity \u2013 the extent to which different antigens appear similar to the immune system \u2013 may be limited between the two virus RBDs, meaning Sars-directed mAbs will not necessarily work against the new virus.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, they identified the spike protein of coronaviruses, which is essential to gain entry into host cells during the infection process, as the most important target for vaccines, therapeutic antibodies and diagnostics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDue to the indispensable function of the [spike] protein it represents a vulnerable target for antibody-mediated neutralisation,\u201d the report said. \u201cKnowing the atomic-level structure of the spike will support precision vaccine design and discovery of antivirals, facilitating medical countermeasure development.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The WHO has declared the outbreak a global public health emergency, making it the sixth incident to date to warrant that designation.<\/p>\n<p>There are currently no specific treatments for the novel coronavirus but the WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week that the first vaccine may be available in 18 months.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coronavirus up to 20 times more likely than Sars to bind to human cells, study suggests That means &#8216;more contagious&#8217;. New strain appears to be more readily transmitted from human to human than Sars, Texas researchers find Further studies needed to explore human host cells\u2019 role in spread between people, the report says The deadly &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=37250\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-medicine","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37278,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37250\/revisions\/37278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}