
Covid-19 attacks the 1-beta chain of hemoglobin to inhibit human heme metabolism - M5x7wI3CmbEem10
https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surface_Glycoprotein_Inhibit_Heme_Metabolism_by_Binding_to_Porphyrin/11938173
======
g3e0
There was a post about this doing the rounds yesterday. Annoyingly it was
posted on Medium and has since been removed, but a copy of it, along with some
interesting discussion, can be found here:
[http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/04/05/wuhan-f...](http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/04/05/wuhan-
flu-21/)

The hypothesis is that the virus is somehow attacking the hemoglobin, stopping
it from being able to carry oxygen AND releasing a toxic form of iron, both of
which eventually cause organ failure.

I am not a doctor, but if this hypothesis is true, it could explain why the
death rate for those who end up on a ventilator is so high. If your immune
system doesn’t fight the infection off fast enough, eventually your blood
becomes incapable of carrying oxygen. At this point, a ventilator won’t help
you, you would need a blood transfusion containing healthy hemoglobin.

The tone of the post was that we are currently fighting the wrong disease -
treating Covid-19 like we would treat pneumonia, when it is actually something
unique.

~~~
withinboredom
After seeing it develop in my wife, and later myself, I can confirm that it
“appears like malaria” in that in comes in waves (much like a blood disease
like malaria). There could be some truth to this, but it could also be
personal bias seeing a pattern that isn’t there.

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twic
> In this study, conserved domain analysis, homology modeling, and molecular
> docking were used

In other words, they haven't actually done any experiments.

> The results showed the ORF8 and surface glycoprotein could bind to the
> porphyrin, respectively. At the same time, orf1ab, ORF10, and ORF3a proteins
> could coordinate attack the heme on the 1-beta chain of hemoglobin to
> dissociate the iron to form the porphyrin.

Haemoglobin is inside red blood cells. If you think these interactions are
happening, you need to explain how you think the viral proteins are getting
inside red blood cells in sufficient quantity to significantly screw up the
haemoglobin.

I don't think red blood cells even express ACE2, the receptor the virus uses
to enter cells.

If viruses did somehow manage to enter red blood cells, they would find that
there is no transcription and translation machinery (red blood cells aren't
really cells, psych!), and so they won't be able to make more of their
proteins - the only things doing any interacting will be the scant handful of
proteins that the virus particles brought with them.

Even then, the paper is really unclear on the details, but i get the
impression that it is the extracellular domains of the envelope protein and
surface glycoprotein that are being modelled. When a virus enters a cell, it
does it by fusing its envelope with the membrane of the host cell, which
leaves the extracellular domains of the viral membrane proteins on the outside
of the host cell. Which is not where the haemoglobin is.

I think this paper is absolute nonsense from top to bottom. What am i missing?

~~~
M5x7wI3CmbEem10
here is a phenomenal twitter thread that outlines the implications of this
study:

[https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1244717172871409666](https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1244717172871409666)

~~~
zalkota
This NYC doctor gives an alarmingly accurate firsthand description that
corresponds with this study.
[https://youtu.be/KLXY_yqBgDE](https://youtu.be/KLXY_yqBgDE)

~~~
goldenkey
The 5g internet hypothesis in the video description is carnal conspiracy. But
the doctor's words are apt.

Perhaps you can reupload it without that BS tacked on, exploiting the doctor's
sage commentary.

------
dannykwells
Inflammatory title not supported by the document. Please fix.

~~~
rini17
Probably too long. I propose: "COVID-19 Attacks the Hemoglobin to Inhibit
Human Meme Metabolism"

~~~
dang
The memes are doing fine ;)

