1/The parallels between COVID and snake venom aren't what you think. There is an explanation and it is scientific but it does not have anything to do with there being snake venom in the protein sequence. I do not find any protein homology to Sars2. See this thread. 👇
2/Yes, there is an enzyme, a serine protease, called elastase that is associated with acute lung injury. Elastase breaks down elastin. In your body, there is digestive elastase (pancreas) and neutrophil elastase (immune system) - Same enzyme different functions.
3/ Known since before Sars1 that neutrophil elastase causes severe lung injury. It damages the tissue, literally destroys the tight junctions between cells. Imagine lung tissue that allows fluids and air to flow in between cells. How could you breathe? pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12223222/
4/ Mainly the Japanese who researched the association between neutrophil elastase and Sars Coronavirus #1. There were conclusions that not only did elastase damage lung tissue but also seemed as though the virus used it to gain access to other receptors. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16116101/
5/ Maybe there are people who believe that the clinical manifestation of severe COVID has some parallels to the severe toxicity of snake venom. The common denominator to both is role of serine protease in the pathology. But different reasons are involved - not protein homology.
6/ I can understand why people think that there are parallels to snake venom. Look at this paper. 👇 Next I will show you how the same types of pathologies are being cause by NEUTROPHILS, NETs and neutrophil elastase. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
7/ Snake venom serine proteases cause pathologies that we believe that we also see in severe COVID especially those who die and have an autopsy. The reason is not because there are snake venom proteins in the virus. It is the biological coincidence of what serine proteases do.
8/ Neutrophil elastase, a serine protease, has the same/similar effect on blood coagulation factors as does snake venom. Sars2 does not contain snake venom proteins. karger.com/Article/Abstra…
9/Here is a paper regarding the autopsy results that show the neutrophil problem. rupress.org/jem/article/21…
10/ The autopsy in the above paper show very extensive neutrophil infiltration in the lung tissue and vessels.
11/ Serine proteases are the foundation of the similarity of severe covid to snake venom. The proteins in this paper are NOT a match other than a very small fragment which only has "structural" similarity. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
12/ Here the author hypothesizes about reason for the "structural" similarity. There is nothing about this which points to anything other than small peptide fragments which occur in nature with similar binding characteristics. NOT that there is snake venom in the Sars2 virus.
13/ Now, if you think that I missed the point that Arizona researchers found secreted phospholipases A2 (sPLA2s) which have similarities to snake venom, I am going to show you that they measured the precursor that activates neutrophils to secrete elastase. news.arizona.edu/story/venom-co…
14/ If high levels of sPLAs were present in severe COVID, you learn: a) associated with autoimmune and inflammatory disease, b) could have a genetic component, c) could be what has stimulated neutrophils to produce elastase cause of hypercoagulation.
15/ Why is the enzyme in the Arizona research, phospholipidase A2, the precursor to neutrophil elastase? Neutrophils have a sPLA2 receptor on the surface membrane that is activated by sPLA2, which stimulates neutrophils to produce elastase. journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.11…
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