Omicron Covid variant may have infected part of the common cold virus

According to the researchers, the omicron variant of the virus that causes Covid-19 can acquire at least one of its mutations by obtaining a piece of genetic material from another virus – possibly a virus. cause of the common cold – present in the same infected cells.

The gene sequence did not appear in any previous version of the coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, but is common in many other viruses, including those that cause colds, the researchers say. common cold and also in the human genome.

By inserting this specific piece of code into itself, omicron can make it look “more human”, which would help it avoid attack by the human immune system, said Venky Soundararajan from Cambridge, Massachusetts-based data analytics company, leader research posted on Thursday on the OSF Preprints website.

This could mean that the virus is more easily transmitted, while causing only mild illness or no symptoms. Scientists still don’t know if omicron is more infectious than other variants, whether it causes more severe disease, or whether it will overtake Delta as the most common variant. Answers to these questions may take several weeks.

Cells in the lungs and in the digestive system can harbor SARS-CoV-2 and the common cold coronavirus simultaneously, according to previous studies. Such co-infection creates the context for viral recombination, a process in which two different viruses in the same host cell interact while making copies of themselves, making copies of themselves. New stars have some genetic material from both “parents”.

In the study, Soundararajan and colleagues show that this new mutation can first occur in a person infected with both pathogens when one version of SARS-CoV-2 picks up a genetic sequence from the other virus.

The same genetic sequence appeared repeatedly in one of the human cold-causing coronaviruses – called HCoV-229E – and in the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, Soundararajan said.

South Africa, where omicrons were first identified, has the highest rates of HIV infection in the world, which weakens the immune system and increases a person’s vulnerability to common cold virus infections. common and other pathogens. In that part of the world, there are many people where recombination that adds this common genome to the omicron has occurred, Soundararajan said.

“We could have missed many generations of recombination” that happened over time and that led to the emergence of the omicron, added Soundararajan.

Further research is needed to confirm the origin of the omicron mutations and their effect on function and transduction. There are competing theories that the newest variant may have undergone some evolutionary time in the animal host.

Meanwhile, Soundararajan said, the new findings highlight the importance of people getting a Covid-19 vaccine that is now available.

“You have to get vaccinated to reduce the odds that other people, who are immunocompromised, will encounter the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” says Soundararajan.