Ohm, Vision and Value,
Fair enough. The different CoVs genus receptor-binding domains bind to different receptors and since the SARS epidemic, the crystal structures of ?ve coronavirus S1 domains complexed with their respective receptor have been determined: angiotensin-converting enzyme ACE , aminopeptidase N APN , dipeptidyl peptidase 4 DPP4 , carboxypeptidase.
Three of the four known protein receptors for coronaviruses are peptidases: ACE2, APN and DPP4. It is highly unlikely that the use of peptidases as coronavirus receptors is simply a coincidence. They are all recognized by S1-CTDs (C terminal domains) of different coronaviruses. so, all of them have some similarity.
However, for, the new (Wuhan) coronavirus it was found that these 4 new insertions are unique to 2019-nCoV and are not present in other coronaviruses analyzed. Another group from China had documented three insertions comparing fewer spike glycoprotein sequences of coronaviruses.
Unexpectedly, all the insertions got aligned with Human immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1). Further analysis revealed that aligned sequences of HIV-1 with 2019-nCoV were derived from surface glycoprotein gp120 and from Gag protein (366-384 amino acid) (Table 1). Gag protein of HIV is involved in host membrane binding, packaging of the virus and for the formation of virus-like particles.
Gp120 plays crucial role in recognizing the host cell by binding to the primary receptor CD4.This binding induces structural rearrangements in GP120, creating a high affinity binding site for a chemokine co-receptor like CXCR4 and/or CCR5.
Most of the above is cut-and-paste from recent papers.
My point here is that we don't know anything about this NEW coronavirus that already has shown different characteristics from the other 8 strains (and three genus) already identified. As this one has 4 insertions that rearranges gp120 making it more "binding" to CCR5.
If this is the case, I was submitting that Leronlimab might be of use.
I don't pretend to know that this is the case. Just proposing an "educated opinion" based of the scant literature available yet on the subject.
