rafter
Since 1999
Is this what got deleted from Twitter? This is long so I'm going to have to split it up....
www.zerohedge.com
Coronavirus Contains "HIV Insertions", Stoking Fears Over Artificially Created Bioweapon
by Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/01/2020 - 10:49
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Update (1040ET): Science moves fast during an outbreak like this, and Dr. Feigl-Ding has issued a few tweets clarifying and correcting some of the information cited in the threads we included below.
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Though beforehand, he acknowledged that the paper' conclusions are "bat shit" wild and need to be scrutinized by the scientific community immediately.
* * *
Over the past few days, the mainstream press has vigorously pushed back against a theory about the origins of the coronavirus that has now infected as many as 70,000+ people in Wuhan alone (depending on whom you believe). The theory is that China obtained the coronavirus via a Canadian research program, and started molding it into a bioweapon at the Institute of Virology in Wuhan. Politifact pointed the finger at Zero Hedge, in particular, though the story was widely shared across independent-leaning media.
The theory is that the virus, which was developed by infectious disease experts may have originated in the Wuhan-based lab of Dr. Peng Zhou, China's preeminent researcher of bat immune systems, specifically in how their immune systems adapt to the presence of viruses like coronavirus and other destructive viruses. Somehow, the virus escaped from the lab, and the Hunan fish market where the virus supposedly originated is merely a ruse.
Now, a respected epidemiologist who recently caught flack for claiming in a twitter threat that the virus appeared to be much more contagious than initially believed is pointing out irregularities in the virus's genome that suggests it might have been genetically engineered for the purposes of a weapon, and not just any weapon but the deadliest one of all.
In "Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag", Indian researchers are baffled by segments of the virus's RNA that have no relation to other coronaviruses like SARS, and instead appear to be closer to HIV. The virus even responds to treatment by HIV medications.
For those pressed for time, here are the key findings from the paper, which first focuses on the unique nature of 2019-nCoV, and then observe four amino acid sequences in the Wuhan Coronavirus which are homologous to amino acid sequences in HIV1:
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But the 'smoking gun' in this case are pieces of the virus's genetic code that Indian researchers, led by Prashant Pradhan at the Indian Institute of Technology, found may have been 'embedded' from HIV, which belongs to an entirely different family of viruses.
Coronavirus Contains "HIV Insertions", Stoking Fears Over Artificially Created Bioweapon
"Oh my god..."
by Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/01/2020 - 10:49
278
SHARES
TwitterFacebookRedditEmailPrint
Update (1040ET): Science moves fast during an outbreak like this, and Dr. Feigl-Ding has issued a few tweets clarifying and correcting some of the information cited in the threads we included below.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding@DrEricDing
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1223362697061982208
Replying to @DrEricDing
25. QUICK FOLLOWUP: One researcher @trvrb did a BLAST search and did find the insertions existing in other related viruses. Let’s wait and see for more confirming / refuting studies to be published. https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1223337991168380928?s=21 … https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1223337991168380928 …
Trevor Bedford@trvrb
These short inserts do indeed exist in #nCoV2019 relative to its closest sequenced relative (BetaCoV/bat/Yunnan/RaTG13/2013, seen here https://nextstrain.org/groups/blab/sars-like-cov …). However, a simple BLAST of such short sequences shows match to a huge variety of organisms. No reason to conclude HIV. https://twitter.com/biorxivpreprint/status/1223245639296978951 …
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Though beforehand, he acknowledged that the paper' conclusions are "bat shit" wild and need to be scrutinized by the scientific community immediately.
The situation is fluid. Who knows what researchers will discover next?
* * *
Over the past few days, the mainstream press has vigorously pushed back against a theory about the origins of the coronavirus that has now infected as many as 70,000+ people in Wuhan alone (depending on whom you believe). The theory is that China obtained the coronavirus via a Canadian research program, and started molding it into a bioweapon at the Institute of Virology in Wuhan. Politifact pointed the finger at Zero Hedge, in particular, though the story was widely shared across independent-leaning media.
The theory is that the virus, which was developed by infectious disease experts may have originated in the Wuhan-based lab of Dr. Peng Zhou, China's preeminent researcher of bat immune systems, specifically in how their immune systems adapt to the presence of viruses like coronavirus and other destructive viruses. Somehow, the virus escaped from the lab, and the Hunan fish market where the virus supposedly originated is merely a ruse.
Now, a respected epidemiologist who recently caught flack for claiming in a twitter threat that the virus appeared to be much more contagious than initially believed is pointing out irregularities in the virus's genome that suggests it might have been genetically engineered for the purposes of a weapon, and not just any weapon but the deadliest one of all.
In "Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag", Indian researchers are baffled by segments of the virus's RNA that have no relation to other coronaviruses like SARS, and instead appear to be closer to HIV. The virus even responds to treatment by HIV medications.
For those pressed for time, here are the key findings from the paper, which first focuses on the unique nature of 2019-nCoV, and then observe four amino acid sequences in the Wuhan Coronavirus which are homologous to amino acid sequences in HIV1:
Why do the authors think the virus may be man-made? Because when looking at the above insertions which are not present in any of the closest coronavirus families, "it is quite unlikely for a virus to have acquired such unique insertions naturally in a short duration of time." Instead, they can be found in cell identification and membrane binding proteins located in the HIV genome.Our phylogentic tree of full-length coronaviruses suggests that 2019-nCoV is closely related to SARS CoV [Fig1].
In addition, other recent studies have linked the 2019-nCoV to SARS CoV. We therefore compared the spike glycoprotein sequences of the 2019-nCoV to that of the SARS CoV (NCBI Accession number: AY390556.1). On careful examination of the sequence alignment we found that the 2019- nCoV spike glycoprotein contains 4 insertions [Fig.2]. To further investigate if these inserts are present in any other corona virus, we performed a multiple sequence alignment of the spike glycoprotein amino acid sequences of all available coronaviruses (n=55) [refer Table S.File1] in NCBI refseq (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) this includes one sequence of 2019-nCoV[Fig.S1]. We found that these 4 insertions [inserts 1, 2, 3 and 4] are unique to 2019-nCoV and are not present in other coronaviruses analyzed. Another group from China had documented three insertions comparing fewer spike glycoprotein sequences of coronaviruses . Another group from China had documented three insertions comparing fewer spike glycoprotein sequences of coronaviruses (Zhou et al., 2020).
We then translated the aligned genome and found that these inserts are present in all Wuhan 2019-nCoV viruses except the 2019-nCoV virus of Bat as a host [Fig.S4]. Intrigued by the 4 highly conserved inserts unique to 2019-nCoV we wanted to understand their origin. For this purpose, we used the 2019-nCoV local alignment with each insert as query against all virus genomes and considered hits with 100% sequence coverage. Surprisingly, each of the four inserts aligned with short segments of the Human immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1) proteins. The amino acid positions of the inserts in 2019-nCoV and the corresponding residues in HIV-1 gp120 and HIV-1 Gag are shown in Table 1.
The first 3 inserts (insert 1,2 and 3) aligned to short segments of amino acid residues in HIV-1 gp120. The insert 4 aligned to HIV-1 Gag. The insert 1 (6 amino acid residues) and insert 2 (6 amino acid residues) in the spike glycoprotein of 2019-nCoV are 100% identical to the residues mapped to HIV-1 gp120. The insert 3 (12 amino acid residues) in 2019- nCoV maps to HIV-1 gp120 with gaps [see Table 1]. The insert 4 (8 amino acid residues) maps to HIV-1 Gag with gaps.
And some visuals, which lead the paper authors to conclude that "this structural change might have also increased the range of host cells that 2019-nCoV can infect":
A good recap of the findings was provided by Dr. Feigl-Ding, who started his explanatory thread by pointing out that the transmission rate outside China has surpassed the rate inside China.3D modelling of the protein structure displayed that these insertions are present at the binding site of 2019-nCoV. Due to the presence of gp120 motifs in 2019-nCoV spike glycoprotein at its binding domain, we propose that these motif insertions could have provided an enhanced affinity towards host cell receptors. Further, this structural change might have also increased the range of host cells that 2019-nCoV can infect. To the best of our knowledge, the function of these motifs is still not clear in HIV and need to be explored. The exchange of genetic material among the viruses is well known and such critical exchange highlights the risk and the need to investigate the relations between seemingly unrelated virus families.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding@DrEricDing
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1223262730506964992
A graph is worth a thousand letters. #coronavirus. Source: NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-coronavirus-contain.html …
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Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding@DrEricDing
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1223283208025976832
Replying to @DrEricDing
2) Whoa- the rate of increase ***outside of China*** is steeper than inside of China or Wuhan! Figure 1A. From: @TheLancet “Nowcasting and forecasting the potential domestic and international spread of 2019-nCoV http://bit.ly/2GF6gZP ”)
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Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding@DrEricDing
· Jan 31, 2020
Replying to @DrEricDing
2) Whoa- the rate of increase ***outside of China*** is steeper than inside of China or Wuhan! Figure 1A. From: @TheLancet “Nowcasting and forecasting the potential domestic and international spread of 2019-nCoV http://bit.ly/2GF6gZP ”)
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding@DrEricDing
3) “An estimated 75815 individuals have been infected in Wuhan” —> this is substantially higher than current reports or ~10k reports by Chinamedia. (75k estimate from above Lancet article)
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Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding@DrEricDing
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1223284109398695937
Replying to @DrEricDing
4) ...”On the present trajectory, 2019-nCoV could be about to become a global epidemic in the absence of mitigation...substantial, even draconian measures that limit population mobility should be seriously and immediately considered in affected areas...”
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But the 'smoking gun' in this case are pieces of the virus's genetic code that Indian researchers, led by Prashant Pradhan at the Indian Institute of Technology, found may have been 'embedded' from HIV, which belongs to an entirely different family of viruses.
