How the 'Alpha' Coronavirus Variant Became So Powerful - The New York Times - 0 views
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British researchers discovered that a new variant was sweeping through their country.
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Alpha disables the first line of immune defense in our bodies, giving the variant more time to multiply.
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. “Any successful virus has to get beyond that first defense system. The more successful it is at doing that, the better off the virus is.”
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A lot of researchers focused their attention on the nine mutations that alter the so-called spike protein that covers the coronavirus and allows it to invade cells
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They found that lung cells with Alpha made drastically less interferon, a protein that switches on a host of immune defenses.
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They found that Alpha-infected cells make a lot of extra copies — some 80 times more than other versions of the virus — of a gene called Orf9b.
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dampening the production of interferon and a full immune response. The virus, protected from attack, has better odds of making copies of itself.
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people infected with Alpha have a more robust reaction than they would with other variants, coughing and shedding virus-laden mucus from not only their mouths, but also their noses — making Alpha even better at spreading.
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But studies on people who recover naturally from Covid-19 have shown that their immune systems learn to recognize other viral proteins, including Orf9b.