BREAKING! Long COVID Is A Misnomer! The Conditions Are Being Caused By Viral Persistence And Viral Peptides Similar To Retrotransposons And Introns!
Source: Medical News -SARS-CoV-2 Viral Peptides - Retrotransposons - Introns Sep 26, 2022 2 years, 2 months, 3 weeks, 5 days, 13 hours, 22 minutes ago
We have been having lots of so-called experts…each claiming to have discovered the factors that is causing that Long COVID. Some say it is a condition caused by vasculitis triggered by the SARS-CoV-2, or it is because of the thrombotic state the body gain due to the effects of the virus while others say that its due to damages caused by the hyperinflammatory state induced by the SARS-CoV-2 virus or that is because of the changes in endocrine system, changes in gene regulation. Yet many more claim that a dysfunctional and damaged immune system is the cause and also, we have those who say that is because of autoimmune issues caused by SARS-CoV-2 generated autoantibodies etc.
They are all right but at the same time also wrong. What everybody has been missing out is that viral persistence is the key issue that is leading to all these factors that are contributing to the manifestations of various conditions and symptoms seen in long COVID!
In reality there no way that the human host immune system nor any of the monoclonal antibodies or existing antivirals are capable of totally eradicating this RNA virus and granting an individual 100 percent viral clearance!
The SARS-CoV-2 virus is capable of not only hiding in deep in tissue and organs and other reservoirs but it is also cable of mutating itself while in the human host to accommodate its persistence and survival in specific regions of the human host that it is hiding in!
We are actually in reality dealing with a virus similar to HIV and utilizing nasal swabs or saliva swabs is not the least a recommended way to assess recovery let alone viral clearance nor are the current blood tests which are not capable of detecting certain low viral loads.
It is already a known fact that most RNA viruses are better equipped to deal with persistence in the human host and actually the SARS-CoV-2 virus while it has been evolving rapidly in the last 33 months and spawning various mutations and sub-lineages is actually in a quest not just for immune evasiveness but actually to help prolong its survival in the human host by literally disarming all human host immune responses!
The newer Omicron subvariants are going to be problematic as while they are better at evading the human immune responses, they also have varied tropisms, enhanced binding to a variety of receptors and even critical proteases and exhibit differences in pathogenesis…..which means we are going to see an even varied spectrum of symptoms and conditions arising in the long term!
Also, another interesting discovery that we at Thailand Medical News have discovered while working on herbal therapeutics for treating COVID-19 and also the various conditions associated with Long COVID, is that there is an array of sub-genomic RNA and even unique viral peptides that are generated during the virus replication processes that do not have any role in the structural aspects and are released into host. Some are unique small viral RNAs that share unique and distinct characteristics which many have mislabelled as junk RNA fragments.
Most scientist have regarded these as simply sub-genomic RNA and unique viral peptides as Defective viral genomes (DVGs) or bits of defective peptides or simply as junk sequences.
Some researchers have a
lready started studying these DVGs and their role in pathogenesis after our calls to various groups to look into these unique viral peptides.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.22.509123v1
Another past study had also detected SARS-CoV-2 viral small RNAs which many mistook as junk RNAs.
https://www.mdpi.com/2036-7481/13/4/56
Ome past study showed that such short RNA s from SARS-CoV-2 could help suppress parts of the host immunity!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34903581/
We at Thailand
Medical News in early preliminary stages of a study involving collaboration with researchers from the United States, India, China and Brazil have identified sets of such unique sub-genomic RNA ,viral peptides and various small or short RNAs and strongly believe that they function similar to retrotransposons and introns and are capable of attaching to various receptors and critical human host proteases, disrupting various cellular pathways and causing immune and gene dysregulation and even epigenetic changesn hence playing critical role in pathogenesis and also in Long COVID issues.
Unlike viroids that are spawned from plant viruses, some of these viral peptides from the SARS-CoV-2 virus are able to code for protein!
In fact, these viral peptides are literally retrotransposons and introns are even capable of replicating in some cases hence causing their persistence in the human host!
The first study to mention about the possibility of some of these virus sub-genomic RNA materials acting as a possible retrotransposons was first mentioned in a study in 2021 that describes about the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 integrating into the human DNA!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33958444/
However, that study did not identify the viral peptides that were different from the sub-genomic RNA that were also produced during viral replication.
In fact, these viral peptides that are released into the human host are believed to even mimicry existing human chemokines and proteases and affect a wide range of cellular pathways and cellular activities.
It is believed that that there more than a few hundred different kinds of these viral peptides, each with unique characteristics and binding capabilities.
An urgent concerted effort is needed by various international researchers to look into these viral peptides, classify them and to find the relevant inhibitors.
Though we at Thailand
Medical News have already started working on computational studies to identify molecules that can inhibit some of these identified viral peptides, we are working with limited resources and means plus our focus is simply on existing phytochemicals that can inhibit these viral peptides.
Well-equipped research labs would be best suited to work on the identification of these viral peptides and also analyze which specific human proteases or cellular pathways they are engaging in.
Thailand
Medical News will be covering more on this discovery in coming weeks.
For the latest
SARS-CoV-2 Research, keep on logging to Thailand
Medical News.
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