AMYLOID FIBRIL FORMATION AS MEANS OF VIRAL INFECTION ENHANCEMENT: A CONNECTION WITH HIV

Could the Spike Protein on its own be as the decapitated snake head: still capable of delivering a deadly bite?

SARS-CoV-2 should star in its own musical: Annie Get Your Vaccine. In this musical the virus sings a showstopping song to all the other viruses on earth: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.

This superior ability certainly applies to a very interesting method of viral infection enhancement. One that is employed by HIV, among others. Inducing amyloid peptides and amyloid fibrils enhances viral infection – greatly.

The entry enhancement observed in the referenced paper is mediated by the precipitable amyloidogenic fraction of Aβ. Interestingly, other synthetic amyloidogenic peptides UNRELATED to Aβ similarly ENHANCED VIRAL INFECTION, whereas synthetic nonamyloidogenic peptides had no entry-enhancing effect. These results suggest that FIBRIL FORMATION MAY BE IMPORTANT FOR THE VIRAL ENHANCEMENT EFFECT.

What is the most (under current circumstances) disturbing statement in the paper?

The magnitude of virus entry enhancement by these amyloidogenic peptides raises the possibility that the effect reported herein may be useful in applications such as gene therapy using viral vectors.

Has the Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2 naturally evolved to have perhaps the most profound amyloidogenic capabilities of any human virus to date, or has it been crafted as such?

If crafted, was it known that, as the decapitated snake head can still deliver a deadly strike, these cleaved or mRNA generated Spike Proteins are inducing amyloid fibrils not only to enhance infection, but also to induce pathology?

Questions:

Does this mean that Long COVID is due to the presence of undegraded Spike Protein causing systemic amyloidosis, in particular, microvascular deposition?

Is Long COVID due to the presence of a SARS-CoV-2 reservoir in the body which continually produces Spike Protein?

Is it a combination of the above two?

Do Spike Protein vaccines create a reservoir of Spike Proteins, similar to occult infection?

Is this why Long COVID can be relapsing/remitting? Many viruses go through active and latent periods.

Again, much still to learn.

https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(18)36728-0/fulltext