Coronavirus
Out of context: Reply #5679
- Started
- Last post
- 6,418 Responses
- ********3
Over 20,000 Years Ago, a Coronavirus Epidemic Left Marks in Human DNA
The oldest modern coronavirus is about 820 years old, but humanity has been fighting similar viruses for millennia.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/s…
...
A crown of spike-shaped proteins make coronaviruses recognizable when viewed under a microscope. But modern genetic analysis offers another way to find evidence of coronaviruses: detecting the marks the virus leaves behind in the populations it infects.
...
When coronaviruses infect humans, they rely on the microscopic machinery made by human genes in order to make more virus particles. So the research team focused on a few hundred human genes that interact with coronaviruses—but not other microbes—during an infection, reports Carl Zimmer for the New York Times.In five groups of people, 42 of those genes had enough mutations to suggest they had evolved because of an epidemic. The genes may have become better at fighting off the viral infection, or less hospitable for the virus to use to copy itself. People with those mutations would have been more likely to survive an outbreak of the disease, and later, have children with the same genetic mutations.
...
However, Jackson adds the findings may inform research into treatments for Covid-19 and other coronavirus diseases, because the 42 genes once protected people from coronaviruses.