Could antibodies found in llamas help us to defeat COVID-19?
May 28, 2020
3 minutes
WHAT IS A SPIKE PROTEIN AND WHAT IS ITS FUNCTION?
A spike protein is a protein that decorates the surface of a coronavirus. Its jobs is to attach that virus to a host cell by binding to a receptor [on the host cell’s surface]. Once it’s attached, it fuses the viral membrane with the host cell membrane so that the virus can enter into the host cell and begin the process of replication.
The spike protein is the main machine that
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