Mary Wilson
Well-known member
Water buffalo, Sunda pangolins and mink are among the540 mammals predicted to be likely to spread the coronavirus based on their biology and where they live
17 November 2021
By Carissa Wong
An AI tool has predicted 540 mammalian species that are most likely to spread covid-19 using information about where they live and aspects of their biology.
According to the model, mink, Sunda pangolins and bats are among the top 10 per cent of species most likely to spread covid-19, which matches results from lab experiments.
The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes covid-19, invades human and animal tissues by engaging the ACE2 protein on host cells with its spike protein. This step is required to infect an animal, a prerequisite for potential onward transmission to other hosts.
Distinct species have different versions of the ACE2 protein, so understanding how well their version binds to the coronavirus spike protein can help us predict which animals are most likely to get, and hence possibly spread, covid-19. But the amino acid sequences that make up ACE2 are available for only around 300 species.
To get around this, Barbara Han at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York and her colleagues built a machine-learning tool to predict whether the ACE2 protein from 5400 mammalian species can bind strongly enough to the spike protein from the original coronavirus variant to harbour the virus, even without knowing their ACE2 amino acid sequences.
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...h-mammals-are-most-likely-to-spread-covid-19/
17 November 2021
By Carissa Wong
An AI tool has predicted 540 mammalian species that are most likely to spread covid-19 using information about where they live and aspects of their biology.
According to the model, mink, Sunda pangolins and bats are among the top 10 per cent of species most likely to spread covid-19, which matches results from lab experiments.
The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes covid-19, invades human and animal tissues by engaging the ACE2 protein on host cells with its spike protein. This step is required to infect an animal, a prerequisite for potential onward transmission to other hosts.
Distinct species have different versions of the ACE2 protein, so understanding how well their version binds to the coronavirus spike protein can help us predict which animals are most likely to get, and hence possibly spread, covid-19. But the amino acid sequences that make up ACE2 are available for only around 300 species.
To get around this, Barbara Han at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York and her colleagues built a machine-learning tool to predict whether the ACE2 protein from 5400 mammalian species can bind strongly enough to the spike protein from the original coronavirus variant to harbour the virus, even without knowing their ACE2 amino acid sequences.
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...h-mammals-are-most-likely-to-spread-covid-19/
