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For this reason the spike protein has been the focus of development for COVID-19 vaccines in response to the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. [11] [12] A subgenus of the betacoronaviruses, known as embecoviruses (not including SARS-like coronaviruses), have an additional shorter surface protein known as hemagglutinin esterase. [13]
Spike (S) glycoprotein (sometimes also called spike protein, [2] formerly known as E2 [3]) is the largest of the four major structural proteins found in coronaviruses. [4] The spike protein assembles into trimers that form large structures, called spikes or peplomers, [3] that project from the surface of the virion.
Scanning electron micrograph of SARS virions. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is the disease caused by SARS-CoV-1. It causes an often severe illness and is marked initially by systemic symptoms of muscle pain, headache, and fever, followed in 2–14 days by the onset of respiratory symptoms, [13] mainly cough, dyspnea, and pneumonia.
Ebright has stated that the genome and properties of SARS-CoV-2 provide no basis to conclude the virus was engineered as a bioweapon, [28] [29] but he also has stated that the possibility that the virus entered humans through a laboratory accident cannot be dismissed and has called for a thorough investigation of the origin of the pandemic and for measures to reduce the risk of future pandemics.
Human-to-human transmission of SARS‑CoV‑2 was confirmed on 20 January 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. [16] [39] [40] [41] Transmission was initially assumed to occur primarily via respiratory droplets from coughs and sneezes within a range of about 1.8 metres (6 ft).
SARS-related coronavirus is a member of the genus Betacoronavirus (group 2) and monotypic of the subgenus Sarbecovirus (subgroup B). [13] Sarbecoviruses, unlike embecoviruses or alphacoronaviruses, have only one papain-like proteinase (PLpro) instead of two in the open reading frame ORF1ab. [14]
The envelope (E) protein is the smallest and least well-characterized of the four major structural proteins found in coronavirus virions. [2] [3] [4] It is an integral membrane protein less than 110 amino acid residues long; [2] in SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of Covid-19, the E protein is 75 residues long. [5]
A study by a group of researchers from the Francis Crick Institute, published in The Lancet, shows that humans fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are likely to have more than five times lower levels of neutralizing antibodies against the Delta variant compared to the original COVID-19 strain. [74] [75]