On january 22nd the social app bulletin china science quoted Hao Pei, a researcher at the shanghai basde institute of research at the chinese academy of sciences, as saying," it seems that the new coronavirus in wuhan is very similar to the coronavirus in receptor binding pathways to sars. "
The day before, hao pei and researcher zhong wu of the national center for emergency prevention and control drug engineering of the military institute of medical research, and researcher li xuan of the center for excellence and innovation in molecular plant science of the chinese academy of sciences, published online in chinese science: life sciences, revealing the evolutionary origin of new coronavirus and the molecular pathway of infectious human action in wuhan.
"The results were published within 10 days of receiving the sequencing results, and they were very fast. Li song, a member of the chinese academy of engineering and a pharmaceutical chemist at the military institute of medical research, told jornalist that the study provided a scientific basis for scientific prevention and control, formulating prevention and control strategies and for developing detection/intervention techniques.
In a race against time to prevent and control the new virus, li and experts in an interview with the chinese science newspaper called on china to strengthen the scientific and technological reserve to deal with infectious diseases, through planning ahead, scientific pre-judgment, advance deployment, to enhance the "no shadow, no trace" infectious disease, specific disease to city infectious disease technology support.
Similar to SARS coronavirus binding receptor
By comparing the new type of coronavirus in Wuhan with SARS in 2003(SARS-CoV) and coronavirus in Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV), Hao Pei et al found that the sequence similarity of the new virus was 70% and 40% respectively.
among them, the key spike genes (coded s-protein) for the interaction of different coronaviruses with host cells are more different.
although four of the five key amino acids that bind to the human ace2 protein in the new coronavirus s-protein in wuhan have changed, the changed amino acids, however, have perfectly maintained the original structural conformation of the s-protein interaction between the s-cov and the ace2 protein in overall integrity.
in response, the authors explain in this paper that although the new structure of the new coronavirus in wuhan interacts with ace2 protein, it still achieves a strong binding free energy due to the loss of a few hydrogen bonds.
"SARS-CoV was a thoroughly studied virus in China that entered the human body by combining with human ACE2 proteins. "This suggests that Wuhan`s new type of coronavirus infects human respiratory epithelial cells through the molecular mechanism by which S-protein interacts with human ACE2," Hao said. "
However, Li said the current study suggested that the new type of coronavirus in Wuhan could infect respiratory epithelial cells like SARS-CoV. But in fact, the molecular dynamics of the study using computer simulations is difficult to accurately judge its strength compared to SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV.
"The ability to transmit viruses includes not only binding to receptors, but also replication and attack capabilities. "he said.
The research team published the article just before the Spring Festival, hoping to prompt researchers for antigen testing and drug development to do further research.
The data are based on the new coronavirus gene sequencing that Professor Zhang Yongzhen led the team at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at Fudan University. In response, Mr Hao said the data were the basis for tracing the virus and all other research.
The "transient" study limits the race against time
Rapid sequencing of Wuhan new coronavirus, research and development of virus diagnostic kit, drug antibodies, rapid prevention and control measures. From colleges and universities, scientific research institutions, enterprises to government are "racing against time" to prevent more people from being infected.
A number of experts have expressed confidence in the outbreak`s prevention and control. After the SARS campaign, our country from monitoring, early warning to prevention and control system, the ability to deal with sudden infectious diseases has been greatly improved. But they also point out that there are still shortcomings.
Mr li said the current response to infectious diseases, especially disease toxicity infectious diseases, china needs to prepare for drugs and vaccine.
"Like this new type of coronavirus in Wuhan, it must be too late to do drug research after it happened. It takes a decade and billions of dollars to make a drug, and it`s not realistic to use emergency research and development to tackle epidemic prevention. "he said.
In that connection, he considered that "scientific pre-judgment, forward deployment" was very important. Li Song remembers that during the SARS period, everyone had a good understanding of the importance of the problem.
Unfortunately, despite the deployment of many missions, most of the scientific research on coronavirus has not continued since SARS.
Among the few persistent groups of the year, the team of Professor Jiang Shibo from the School of Basic Medicine at Fudan University was one of them.
Jiang said its first international broad-spectrum anti-crown virus polypeptide, EK1, could be useful in responding to a new type of coronavirus in Wuhan and is currently being tested in Wuhan.
At the same time, vaccine, a candidate for anti-sars-cov developed by its team in collaboration with baylor university, is one of the few highly effective and safe candidates in international research.
This, he says, is because most coronaviruses are "no market "for drugs and vaccines. Even highly pathogenic and highly lethal pathogens such as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV tend to be "passive "and may never appear again after the epidemic.
"Their market prospects are uncertain, not as big as those of hepatitis or cancer, so pharmaceutical companies and investment firms are hardly interested in the development of similar drugs to fight new outbreaks of infectious diseases or vaccine. As far as I know, few people in China have been doing anti-SARS drugs and vaccine in recent years, and most P3 labs are no longer allowed to do research on SARS-CoV. "said Jiang Shibo.
On the other hand, the funds available to the State are often so limited that they have to do basic research, while clinical trials cost a lot of money.
According to Mr. Jiang, it often takes nearly 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to market a polypeptide drug based on his experience in the U.S. in developing anti-AIDS polypeptide drugs, and there are basically no domestic companies willing to do so. "This is now the greatest difficulty. "he said.
Advance deployment Make up for "short board"
A sudden outbreak of infectious disease, toxicity, often causes a very large economic loss to a country. For example, mr. jiang said that mr. mers lost hundreds of billions of yuan in china when the mrs became popular in south korea in just over a month in 2015. From this point of view, the State should increase its support for the study of new outbreaks of highly pathogenic infectious diseases and persevere. "he added.
"Like SARS, infectious diseases like toxicity tend to be like this: no shadow, no trace. "The future impact of the disease toxicity major infectious diseases in China will certainly come again, so we should plan ahead and focus on developing broad-spectrum antiviral drugs, so as to gain valuable time for the development of targeted vaccine.
He called on the state to strengthen its technological support for prevention and control of the epidemic and to provide long-term and stable support for drug and vaccine research and development.
At the same time, scientists should be able to endure loneliness and carry out long-term scientific research on the effective prevention and control of new outbreaks of infectious diseases and the development of broad-spectrum antiviral drugs, so that the epidemic can be handled calmly after the outbreak.
