Slack / Private Message Drop — page 449

[2021-01-25 08:01:49] [Robert Garry] Those two residues have or are next to a residues that's changed before. Opps didn't change the mink - it's G261D - the GoD mutation. [2021-01-25 08:05:01] [Robert Garry] New sequences disprove conspiracy theories based on a laboratory contrived origin of bat coronavirus RatG13 and pangolin coronaviruses. [2021-01-25 09:27:07] [Kristian Andersen] Wow, that's pretty wild @Robert Garry - that's why we keep you around :wink:. I have never thought to think of this as a cysteine bridge, so lord knows what it does to the structure. For now, this virus remains inside the patient - we haven't seen any transmissions. With the patients at Tulane, I see a bigger study building.... [2021-01-25 09:41:22] [Robert Garry] If you show this to Erica or Andrew Ward - they want to jump on this I am certain. Consider that it's never (at least as far as I can tell with a quick look) been shown for HIV. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2555952/ "Sequence variability of Env among different HIV strains is notorious and in part explains why the humoral immune response against HIV-1 is inadequate in patients. *Amid the countless changes in surrounding residues, the cysteine residues are strictly conserved among all isolates of HIV-1 (Louwagie _et al._, 1995 ; Los Alamos HIV sequence database: http://hiv-web.lanl.gov).* This suggests that the antigenic shield of Env may vary, but that the disulfide-bonded structure of Env and hence the basic architecture of the molecule is constant? [2021-01-25 09:49:00] [Robert Garry] The new swab samples from the Tulane patient are coming your way TODAY. Yes a bigger study - these two likely others are probably already looking at structures of the new variants, but yours will really get their blood boiling. CDC declined to come and do any contact tracing, but did offer up some advice for quarantining the patient. Regeneron wants to give the patient a whopping dose of their drug, which will cure him or give rise to a B.1.351 like variant. [2021-01-25 11:46:02] [Robert Garry] Cambobatcov spike pretty interesting - it has the E484 and 5/6 of the GD Pango/SC2 RBD residues we highlighted in PO1. Add to that the furin landing site QTQTN that it shares with PangoGD CoV and RatG13. [shared file(s): image.png] [2021-01-25 11:55:41] [Robert Garry] So bottom line a new bat virus that confirms the authenticity of GD pangocov. [2021-01-25 12:09:11] [Eddie Holmes] Brilliant work Bob! The Cambobatcov paper should be online soon I believe [2021-01-25 12:14:13] [Robert Garry] That would be great - have some ideas gelling for an "opinion" piece for Virological. Something along the lines of: New sequences disprove conspiracy theories based on contrived origins of bat coronavirus RatG13 and pangolin coronaviruses. [2021-01-25 12:44:44] [Eddie Holmes] Love it! Looking forward to having a rant on Twitter