Slack / Private Message Drop — page 1027

[2021-11-24 08:54:18] [Kristian Andersen] Yeah, very clearly not a conscious choice - just nature doing it's thing. All it took was a virus with a landing site and then stuff comes and goes around that site all the time - just had to be the right sequence that popped in. [2021-11-24 08:55:08] [Robert Garry] Yup - nature - we get to see the brilliance but only afterwards. [2021-11-24 09:02:01] [Kristian Andersen] Some alignments with these sequences combined with relevant SARSr-CoVs - just FYI. [shared file(s): 2021.11.24_alignment_spike_nt.geneious, 2021.11.24_alignment_spike_aa.geneious, 2021.11.24_alignment_spike_aa_minimal_annotated.geneious] [2021-11-24 09:03:43] [Kristian Andersen] This is mind blowing - BANAL-52 is closer to Hu-1 in the spike (in AA space) than the Botswana sequences are.... Holy fuck. [2021-11-24 09:04:10] [Kristian Andersen] 98.4% vs 96.9% [2021-11-24 09:10:58] [Robert Garry] Yeah - what I really want to do is put the PRRA into BANAL-52 and see how it does several species. [2021-11-24 09:11:45] [Kristian Andersen] What the heck is up here - Hu1 on top, Botswana at the bottom [shared file(s): Screen Shot 2021-11-24 at 9.07.10 AM.png] [2021-11-24 09:12:07] [Kristian Andersen] In AA space: [shared file(s): Screen Shot 2021-11-24 at 9.07.32 AM.png] [2021-11-24 09:13:16] [Kristian Andersen] Here's the key part of the RBD - contact residues listed in purple above. This makes me believe this could be evolution in a non-human host, so I'll have to change my 70/30 odds to 50/50 based on this alone. This is very interesting. [shared file(s): Screen Shot 2021-11-24 at 9.08.55 AM.png] [2021-11-24 09:24:22] [Robert Garry] Agree - it's freaky! [2021-11-24 09:24:36] [Kristian Andersen] The insertion ("TAGTGCGTGAGCCAGAA") around 630 could be interesting - obviously a short sequence, but it ain't from SC2 itself and the top BLAST results match fungi, cholera, and a fish... [2021-11-24 09:26:32] [Robert Garry] THis insertions are rare - wasn't there a preprint or virological post on those a while back?