Coronavirus hijacks cells, forces them to grow tentacles, then invades others
By Yasemin Saplakoglu - Staff Writer a day ago
Scientists are looking at how the coronavirus invades cells to find the right drugs to target it.
Cells infected with the new coronavirus grow stringy, tentacle-like arms that allow the virus to invade other cells, according to a new study.
The novel coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, has now infected more than 12.2 million people worldwide and killed more than 555,500, according to the Johns Hopkins dashboard. To defeat the virus, researchers around the world are taking part in an unprecedented effort to find new drugs and repurpose old ones.
But to truly find the right therapeutic weapon, scientists need to understand in detail how the virus invades human cells. To figure that out, an international group of researchers looked at how the virus changes activity inside cells in order to invade more and more cells. They specifically analyzed how the virus can alter certain proteins in infected cells. (Proteins carry out the instructions of genes, and so protein changes could impact the actual actions of infected cells.)
This new research builds upon a "blueprint" of 332 human proteins that interact with 27 SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins that researchers had described in April in the journal Nature. In this new study, the researchers analyzed all of the human proteins that, when infected, showed changes in a process called phosphorylation — in which a protein called a kinase sticks a phosphoryl group (a phosphorus atom attached to three oxygens) onto other proteins, according to a statement.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-creates-tentacles-to-invade-cells.html?utm_source=notification
= new reply since forum marked as read
for this Judi Lynn 
Yikes! Scary stuff! 
