The Coronavirus Menagerie – The New York Times

Some analysis groups are specializing in the ACE2 receptor, a protein discovered on the floor of the cells of many species. The coronavirus’s spiky protrusions enable it to bind to those receptors, like a key in a lock, and enter cells.

In 2020, a gaggle of scientists in contrast the ACE2 receptors of a whole bunch of vertebrates, principally mammals, with these of people to find out which species the virus would possibly infect. (The ACE2 receptors of birds, reptiles, fish and amphibians are usually not related sufficient to ours to boost concern.)

“The predictions have been superb thus far,” Harris A. Lewin, a biologist on the College of California, Davis, and an creator of the examine, mentioned in an electronic mail. The scientists predicted, as an illustration, that white-tailed deer have been at excessive threat for an infection.

However some predictions proved fully mistaken: The paper recognized farmed mink as a species of “very low” concern — after which in April 2020 the virus raged by means of mink farms.

Certainly, ACE2 gives solely a snapshot of susceptibility. “Viral an infection and immunity is far more advanced than only a virus binding to a cell,” Kaitlin Sawatzki, a virologist at Tufts College, mentioned in an electronic mail.

And of the world’s practically 6,000 mammalian species, scientists have sequenced the ACE2 receptors of just some hundred of them, making a biased information set. These sequenced species embody mannequin organisms utilized in experiments, species that carry different ailments, and charismatic zoo denizens, not essentially the animals that persons are most definitely to come across.

“If a pandemic have been to have arisen from a squirrel, we might be like, ‘God, what’s mistaken with us? We didn’t even measure the fundamental biology of a squirrel,’” Dr. Han mentioned.