“Almost a miracle happened” Coronavirus disappeared in Japan. When this happens in Russia – the biologist answers: Society: Russia: Lenta.ru
Perhaps what the whole world was waiting for happened in Japan – the delta strain of the coronavirus self-destructed. This is not yet an official version of virologists, an assumption voiced by a professor at the National Institute of Genetics Ituro Inoue. But the fact is that if in the summer in the country 26 thousand Japanese fell ill every day, now there are about 200 people. Lenta.ru asked Anchu Baranova, Doctor of Biological Sciences, School of Systems Biology, George Mason University (USA), what is actually happening in Japan and can we expect a repetition of this miracle in Russia.
“Lenta.ru”: Japanese scientists surprised the whole world with the message that the delta strain had self-destructed in their country. Can you believe it?
Ancha Baranova: Japan is an isolated country. Well, at least more isolated than any European or US. At the same time, she was quite disciplined by internal standards. Therefore, in Japan, the spread of the virus is slower than in Europe. And there was not a great variety of strains, delta dominated.
In Japan, as one delta, as reported by Japanese colleagues, mutations have accumulated in the nsp14 protein. And this protein determines the ability of the virus to correct mutations. But since nsp14 itself “got corrupted”, it could not fix anything, errors began to multiply uncontrollably. And in the end, the virus came to a sad finish for itself.
It is important to understand that as soon as the “tainted” delta strain entered Japan, all other derivatives of the virus there originated from it. And it so happened that all of them had a weakened function to correct mutations. At least this course of events is logical, if the Japanese scientists are right.
Imagine an oil circuit in a car. If a pinhead-sized hole appears there, your car will basically stall sooner or later. But this will not happen at the same moment as the hole appeared, but after some time. The machine will run for a rather long time until the oil runs out. That is, the “hole” appeared at the moment when the virus just entered the country. And then he began to disperse further, to disperse. “Oil” was leaking out at this time. And for all the descendants of this virus, it leaked out at about the same moment. The engine of the virus stalled, and it self-destructed.
The likelihood of such an event is strictly individual, is it a character for Japan?
What happened in Japan is almost a miracle. But it really is due to the fact that the country is isolated. The appearance of this little hole, from which no oil flows, happened in Europe, it would not have had an effect. There is a theory of the monophyletic origin of the virus in Japan. Simply put, there was one delta drift in Japan that started it all. And in Europe there were many such drifts. That is, strains in Europe do not grow from one root, but from many different ones. Some came from Iran, some from the United States, then exchanged among themselves. Therefore, if any one branch of them degenerates, then you will not notice it.
Many biologists were skeptical about the findings of their Japanese colleagues. Maybe their skepticism is justified?
Japan has a very strong school for the study of virus mutations, the evolution of mutations, mutations in populations, and so on. This has historically been the case since the days of Hiroshima. The Japanese greatly improved radiation biology in both humans and animals, and also made classical studies of radiation. Experiments, until hands did not reach in Europe, because expensive and long, were carried out in Japan. Because for them it was national security. And all this gave powerful shoots, a strong scientific community of mutation biologists was formed there. They are now called “molecular evolutionists.”
Motoo Kimura is known all over the world among Japanese academics. He created the theory of neutrality of molecular evolution. After Darwin’s theory, it gave humanity the most significant impetus forward in understanding the nature of evolution. Darwin created a classical theory, everything is narrative – well, like a long story in scientific language. And Motoo Kimura already has formulas, mutations and much more. It was Kimura’s work that served as a source, a platform for the modern theory of evolution. I would listen carefully to the words of Japanese scientists – they have extensive experience in interpreting molecular events.
In Russia, according to Rospotrebnadzor, the delta strain also dominates, ousted all the others. Maybe we also have a Japanese scenario?
I don’t think that such a chance is real. The only sign that dominates in Russia is information about sequenced viruses that comes from Rospotrebnadzor. But these sequences are extremely few. Rospotrebnadzor issues information about a smaller amount. Maybe they are accumulating somewhere and someone is analyzing them, but the world community has not seen them en masse.
The formula “the more intensely you search, the more you find” is always relevant. And since we are looking for quite a bit in Russia, it is incorrect to say that the picture is the same here, as in Japan. There is a forest. It is carefully studied by thousands of scientists: every blade of grass, every ladybug is rewritten. And scientists approached the neighboring forest and said: well, it looks like it’s exactly the same forest, why study it? It’s the same here as it is there.
How long can this “miracle” last in Japan?
Until a carrier of some other strain comes to them. To make the miracle last long. Naturally, countries in the world are embedded in each other. And as soon as the virus is cleaned out, we want to open it. Although it is logical to do exactly the opposite – it closes in its own box, while the rest of the world is raging. However, our human culture does not accept this.
Globally, the self-destruction of SARS-CoV-2 is possible?
Of course not. The world is very large, we have many different variants of the virus. Even if you get a situation that the delta suddenly disappears, it is not a fact that this is good. Now the delta, which is the most infectious, sits everywhere and, as it were, “keeps the clearing”, does not let other strains of the virus. That is, delta is transmitted faster than other strains, so they have little chance of multiplying. There are strains that are more harmful, among them are those who evade antibodies, which means that the vaccine takes them worse. But because if the delta dies by itself, and other strains are happy and come, it may become much worse from this.
From a practical point of view, the observation of the Japanese can lead to something? Or are they just observations?
Knowledge is the most basic thing now. When the pandemic just began, everyone said: “Now we will quickly invent a vaccine and drugs, we will throw the virus”. Vaccines appeared, humanity rejoiced. But now it is already clear that vaccines are a good solution to the problem, but not the final one. We still have a bunch of things to come up with. And just the main thing that is missing is knowledge, a searchlight that shines into the future and shows us the outlines of this future. And the Japanese statement, albeit not yet a full-fledged scientific work, but one of the positive rays shining through the darkness. This path definitely needs to be explored and, as a result, to outline at least some kind of map of the future. Not yet Mercator, just a hand-drawn coastline – and still better than nothing!
Self-elimination of the virus is an important thing. The hypothesis must be established and validated by introducing a mutation of the delta strain discovered in Japan on viruses from other countries. I am sure that many virologists are now doing this.
There is no need to discount the find of the Japanese and write that it has no practical value. Of course, so far this is purely scientific data. This is exactly what humanity needs now – to build a competent model of the future, and it can only grow on data.