Scientists find a new way coronaviruses can get into human cells
www.cam.ac.uk
An international team of researchers has identified an East African bat coronavirus capable of entering human cells.

The virus - Cardioderma cor coronavirus (CcCoV) KY43, or CcCoV-KY43 - can bind to a receptor cell found in the human lung, but testing in Kenya suggests it has not spilled over into the local human population.

    • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      It’s just that, the infection continues to exist in the bat, but bats don’t get any ill effects from it. They could have a ton of different infections in their body and it doesn’t really bother them. Bats have much better cancer resistance, too, because their bodies are just used to the constant battering from viruses attacking their cells.

      As far as a human example of this, think about how HPV works. It just stays there in our bodies, causing no effects to us for years and years. But, the constant cell death/regrowth does eventually cause cervical cancer (and others), because we aren’t bats, and our DNA repair systems aren’t designed to handle that kind of constant damage. And worse, HPV spreads, even if it doesn’t do anything for years. That’s why it’s so important to get widespread adoption of the vaccine.

      Chicken pox and shingles is sort of another example. They are both actually just the same virus. After chicken pox does its thing, it will lie dormant for years until it decides to re-activate as shingles later in life. Again, another reason for getting the vaccine before that happens.

    • dgdft@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      I was curious too and found this review article that covered the topic pretty well:

      https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12230189/#mbt270190-sec-0020

      Selected immunity genes included a B‐cell chemokine, interleukins involved in immune system regulation and NF‐κB activation and genes involved in responses to pathogens. Gene losses comprised pro‐inflammatory interleukins that induce the canonical NF‐κB pathway and other pro‐inflammatory cytokines. Within gene gains, an expansion of the APOBEC gene family was most notable; these genes encode DNA‐ and RNA‐editing enzymes that are implicated in restricting viral infection and transposon activity. Interestingly, the smaller genome size of bats was related to a lower transposable element content. The authors concluded that bats had evolved immunomodulatory mechanisms that enabled a higher tolerance to pathogens than is typical among mammals.

      So translated: Rather than firing off huge waves of new antibody variants trying to find one that’ll latch onto the virus, and cranking up the body temp to flush viral pathogens out completely like most mammals would, they make proteins that limit the rate that the virus can propagate into fresh cells.