Are we still doing this? That image is from a paper the *authors* withdrew. It's not even considered a credible analysis by those who wrote it?
Why do you lot think you know better?? https://twitter.com/OCDrises/status/1264391144709873666
1) Novel inserts. If you look in each "insert" region-& expand your alignments to many more CoVs (not just the 1 or 2 you need to sway you followers), you'll find HUGE variation at these sites.
And yet this diversity of CoVs is not lab-made, but natural.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7099673/
2) HIV inserts. Nuh. This table is from a paper that debunked this HIV "insert" rubbish.
Not even inserts. Just genetic differences.
These aa sequences match a ton of viruses, not just HIV. Bad early hot take. Nothing more.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7099673/
In Feb2020, the whole "match" concept - the one from the now withdrawn preprint - was also given a nice basic walk-through on twitter https://twitter.com/guacamolebio/status/1223383400297324544?s=20
We may not have found even a small fraction of the CoV diversity that lies out there in bats & other animals yet (where's the "limiting research 💲 is designed to kill humanity" conspiracy?). There may be viruses with high similarity to sequence stretches at these sites
3) Virus proteins that stick out and help attach and enter cells.
CoVs aren't the only viruses that have transmembrane fusion proteins that attach a virus and then undergo configuration change to permit virus entry.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457962/
Lots do (flu, HIV, EBOV, RSV, HTLV-1, CoVs etc) and they share *functions*, so of course, they can share *structures* - but they differ in their evolutionary path & genetic *sequence*. None of these known virus groups are considered lab-made. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4424100/
Humans, birds, lizards, frogs, chimps - all have 2 eyes. They help them get reflected light info into their brains, but the hosts of those eyes differ-A LOT-from each other structurally and especially genetically. None were lab-made.
Give it a rest until there's some evidence?
You can follow @MackayIM.
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