by Karishma Abhishek on December 22, 2020 at 10:51 PM
COVID-19 causing coronaviruses have protein spikes on their surfaces that help the virus bind with the host receptors cells - first step of infection. Scientists have decoded the first detailed images of those spikes in their natural state, while still attached to the virus using cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and computation techniques as per a study published in the journal Quarterly Reviews Biophysics Discovery.
This serves as the critical step in designing therapeutic drugs and vaccines against the virus. The advantage of doing it this way is that when you purify a spike protein and study it in isolation, you lose important biological context: How does it look in an intact virus particle? It could possibly have a different structure there, says Wah Chiu, a professor at DOE s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University and senior author of the study.
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IMAGE: This rotating image shows the detailed structure of a spike from a coronavirus that causes cold symptoms - a milder relative of the virus that causes COVID-19. Spikes bind to. view more
Credit: K. Zhang et al., Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics Discovery, 2020
Coronaviruses like the one that causes COVID-19 are studded with protein spikes that bind with receptors on the cells of their victims - the first step in infection. Now scientists have made the first detailed images of those spikes in their natural state, while still attached to the virus and without using chemical fixatives that might distort their shape.