The Coronavirus, which first emerged at Wuhan in China had brought the world to its knees in just under 3 months. The virus had extended its spread over the Six continents with Antarctica, the only one being spared. All the money and the military might of some of the most powerful countries of the world were proved useless in countering this Spiky virus.
The images of Coronavirus, which by now are on every human’s nightmare has one distinct feature. Those are the spikes all over a spherical figure which comes to one’s mind at the first reference to the virus. These spikes are actually a protein called simply as Spike protein. The coronavirus spike protein is a multifunctional molecular machine that mediates coronavirus entry into host cells. It first binds to a receptor on the host cell surface through its subunit and then fuses viral and host membranes together to inject its RNA to take command of the host cell.
Now, a group of researchers at Massachusets Institute of Technolgy (MIT) has figured out the molecular structure of Spike protein that the coronavirus uses to invade human cells. Using a technique called ‘Sonification’, the scientists had translated or decoded the Spike Protein of SARS-COV-2, the real name of the virus which causes Covid-19 disease to an audible musical note.
The audio, posted on SoundCloud in March, is meant to help researchers better understand the structure of the virus. Over time, this audio format could help create drugs or find an antibody that can counter the virus’s effect, scientists say. If the spike protein, the Crown in SARS-COV-2 virus is decoded a vaccine may be formulated to prevent the fusion of the virus to the human cell membrane,” if you can prevent attachment and fusion, you will prevent entry,” said an MIT researcher with a hopeful smile.
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