Why "omicron" affects the lungs less than the "delta" strain, at the moment, scientists are not yet fully understood. This was told by the head of the laboratory of genomic engineering at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Pavel Volchkov.

In his opinion, the matter is in the multiple mutations that the "omicron" carries.

“There have been a number of scientific publications on co-receptors (an additional receptor located on the cell surface that binds to a signal molecule (ligand) in addition to the primary receptor -) for the S-protein, Volchkov explained. - ACE2 (primary receptor) is very important and necessary, but there are also co-receptors. They remain in the shadows all the time. Their role is not very clear. It is possible that due to the fact that the omicron spike protein has changed a lot, the affinity for co-receptors has also changed,” the virologist noted.

According to the expert, a similar situation can be observed in the case of HIV. It has the main receptor CD4, and the co-receptor can be, for example, CCR5. Coreceptors also help the virus enter the cell. That is, the main receptor is important, but is not 100% sufficient for successful infection, the virologist explained.

“The “delta” variant of the coronavirus can have one dominant coreceptor, while the “omicron” has another,” says Volchkov. “The difference in co-receptors is one possible explanation for Omicron being less able to infect lung tissue.”

Earlier in an interview, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, said that Omicron had forgotten how to penetrate into the lung tissue.

bbabo.Net