Coronaviruses have big genomes and can play tricks. Including, apparently, with conspiracy theorist minds.
"NSP15 cuts viral RNA, yielding oligos that insert at distal locations....SARS-CoV-2 ... furin cleavage site...C19 pandemic. We found numerous examples of furin site acquisition."
@richardsever.bsky.socialLots of debate about the infamous furin cleavage site (FCS) in SARS-CoV-2 and it's alleged uniqueness. But Paul Bieniasz see "numerous examples of potential FCS acquisition...during normal coronavirus replication", concluding "such events are likely commonplace".
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Genetic innovation in coronaviruses driven by a viral nuclease
Genetic variation in viruses is well known to arise from polymerase-driven nucleotide misincorporation. However, insertion and deletion (indel) mutations that occur at lower, largely unknown, frequenc...