FASEB J: Heavy! Scientists have discovered a special protein that could help SARS-CoV-2 spread rapidly in host cells!

AUGUST 14, 2020 // -- In a recent study published in the international journal The FASEB Journal, scientists from Colorado State University and others found that a special protein encoded by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that induces COVID-19, is directly related to the rapid spread of the virus in the human body.
scientists are now using basic research tools and bio-informational analysis to begin uncovering key features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which could help scientists develop new treatments for COVID-19 in the future.
Photo Source: Colorado State University has been studying prions, a misfolded protein that delivers abnormal shapes to normal mutants of the same protein, leading to a variety of deadly and spreadable neurodegenerative diseases, such as mad cow disease and keryasis, before the COVID-19 outbreak. Lower complexity domains, where the composition and chemical behavior of amino acids are not the same as typical regions, and the interesting thing about these low-complex protein domains is that they have a liquid-liquid separation trend, similar to oil-water separation, in which proteins form "biomolecular condensants" within cells, small areas where proteins are highly concentrated, similar to oil droplets formed when oil and water are separated.
Earlier this year, when researcher Ross and colleagues began studying SARS-CoV-2, they found that the nuclear casing (or N protein) of SARS-CoV-2 also has a less complex domain, which may be able to use liquid-liquid phase separation to promote the packaging of viral RNA, thereby forming new viruses that can infect neighboring cells.
N protein is directly associated with reducing antiviral stress response in infected cells, which typically form pressure particles (a biomolelete condensant) to respond to changes in the environment, which also have antiviral effects. Ross, a
researcher, says cells can react to stress events by making changes in the cellular environment, including modifying certain proteins, but viruses try to evade the cell's defenses and want to infect cells, but sometimes they regulate these pressure particles, which can reduce the host cell's ability to respond to the virus by blocking the cell's normal stress response.
four other laboratories have confirmed some of the hypotheses about the N protein in this study since the study was accepted on May 31.
The application of this paper may hopefully help develop treatments for people who have been infected with the virus, rather than prevent them like vaccines, and finally, the researchers say that medically, if we can combat the virus's ability to interfere with cellular immune defenses, we may be able to help cells fight the virus effectively;
original source: Sean M. Cascarina, Eric D. Ross. A proposed role for the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein in the formation and regulation of biomolecularity, The FASEB Journal (2020).doi:10.1096/fj.202001351.