May 29, 2021
The Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2 has been shown to interact with tumor suppressor p53. p53 mutations are the most common genetic alterations found in cancers and are observed in >50% of all tumors. From the approximately 200 different single mutations already described in p53, several residues are considered as hotspots, including R248, R175, G245, R273, R249, and R282 (Petitjean et al. 2007). All of these residues are found in p53's core domain, which is responsible for its interactions with DNA. For this reason, most of these mutants are incapable of exerting the wild-type (WT) level of transcriptional activity (Bullock et al. 1997). The most frequent effect of p53 mutations is loss-of-function (LoF); however, GoF effects, such as increased migration, invasion, and metastasis, have also been observed. Mutations in the p53 gene occur in more than half of human cancers and often result in altered transcriptional activities.
METASTATIC CANCER AND PRION DISEASE
Recently discovered characteristics of the tumor suppressor p53 include its prion-like properties and cellular uptake mechanisms, which are related to its GoF and are associated with tumor formation and malignancy.
The implications are nothing short of cataclysmic.
Referenced/Related Papers
S2 Subunit of SARS-nCoV-2 Interacts with Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 and BRCA: an In Silico Study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7324311/
Aggregation and Prion-Like Properties of Misfolded Tumor Suppressors: Is Cancer a Prion Disease?