Looking at the various CoV genomes, there are peptides/small proteins, aside from ORF1/2 on the genome, of which functions are unknown. These could circulate and in theory, once in abundance, induce allosteric changes in membrane bound proteins to induce viral shedding alike to bacteriophage Q-sense.
Interesting thought but i am unable to find any scientific evidence regarding this
Yes, Many viruses co-operate, teaming up to co-infect hosts and break down antiviral immune defense. But to till date , very limited scientific evidences are available on it. Need to do work on it.
It is important to know. If they replicate to a critical number then they need to decided the target? hopefully they are sporadically located and need to coordinate. Natokinase suppose to break com of certain bacteria. If all valid what would be likely the substances to do this for conVI19.
I hope so and pray to be so, then that will be a 'great' news for us, human being. If coronaviruses have to quorum sense to cause symptoms and infection, then finding out the conditions to disrupt the quorum sensing can be a much more practical and in-time solution than developing the vaccines. Next questions: 1. what can be the disrupting conditions? They can be certain substances, environments, magnetic forces, or even combination of the above in vivo or in situ. 2. How to design such experiments? How to screen out the potential factors and levels and perform the challenges of coronaviruses in 'human being' al last? Well, a gigantic task!
Jason - this is a great question. I've been wondering the same. Does anyone have an update? Bassler group and others discuss quorum sensing in bacteriophage.
https://www.id-hub.com/2018/12/13/cross-kingdom-communication-phage-taps-quorum-sensing-control-lysis-lysogeny-decision/
Coronavirus genome size is an outlier as a +sense RNA, so there is room for it. This system would explain a lot of variability in host interaction. The virus already exploits human stupidity, lack of trust and compassion really well. Seems like timing the attack would be on the evolutionary shopping list.
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