Curious Things Are Afoot in the Furin Cleavage Site
There is a 19-nucleotide sequence match between the SARS-CoV-2 virus and a sequence patented by Moderna in 2016. Researchers want to know why.
Something strange can be found in the genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. A paper published on February 21, 2022 in the journal Frontiers in Virology calls out this anomaly and asks for further investigation.
Let’s start with the basic vocabulary, shall we?
Furin Cleavage Site (FCS): a specific location in the spike protein portion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This FCS “differentiates SARS-CoV-2 from other b-lineage betacoronaviruses or any other sarbecovirus. An FCS addition enhanced the infectivity of SARS Co-V-2 in 2019” Translation: this is unique to SARS-CoV-2, and it makes this virus much more infectious.
Nucleotide: a basic building block of nucleic acid. (DNA and RNA are examples of nucleic acid). It consists of a sugar molecule, a phosphate molecule, and a nitrogen-containing base. The bases used in DNA are adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T) (https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Nucleotide)
Codon: a 3-nucleotide sequence of genetic code
That should do it for now. Back to the show:
When researchers investigated the genetic code of the FCS of the SARS-Cov-2 virus, they discovered something curious. The first curiosity was the presence of a CGG Codon. This codon is extremely rare to find in the genetic sequence of a coronavirus. Even more rare, would be to find two CGG codons next to each other. SARS-Cov-2 virus displays this rarity in its FCS.
The curiosity goes deeper, as researchers expanded their analysis to the surrounding codons of the FCS. What they found in the SARS-CoV-2 virus was a 19-nucleotide sequence that matched a sequence found in US Patent 9,587,003. Who is the holder of this patent, filed in February 2016, you might ask? A small company you may have heard of in recent months: Moderna Therapeutics.
According to this team’s research, the probability of finding a 19-nucleotide match between the virus and a patented sequence is 3.21e-11. Written differently: 0.0000000000321 or, what we call in the business, “slim to none”.
The concluding statement of the researchers is this: “The presence in SARS-CoV-2 of a 19-nucleotide RNA sequence encoding an FCS at amino acid 681 of its spike protein with 100% identity to the reverse complement of a proprietary MSH3 mRNA sequence is highly unusual. Potential explanations for this correlation should be further investigated.”
Translation: we need to know why there is a highly-improbable genetic match between the circulating virus and a patented molecule from Moderna. Especially since this match sits in a Furin Cleavage Site - the very spot of the virus that is making it so infectious.
Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fviro.2022.834808/full
