U of T researchers create mirror-image peptides that can neutralize SARS-CoV-2

utoronto.ca

21 points·HiroProtagonist··6 comments

> These mirror-image molecules are manufactured from synthetic D-amino acids strung together in the same way as their left-handed counterparts.

This sounds like a prion? Scary! Could someone who understands the nuance better explain the difference?

Prions are misfolded proteins that acts as catalysts for other proteins to fold in new, pathological state. They are built of normal L-amino acids.

"Mirror-image peptides" are built of amino-acids with reverse chirality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality

They have almost nothing common, except for being made of amino-acids.

I once heard someone suggest that creating mirror-prions out of mirror-proteins might one day be a safer way to study prion diseases, since an accidental leak wouldn't be able to trigger the misfolding cascade on the researcher's own proteins, since they're not mirrored.

No idea if this was meant seriously, but it simultaneously sounds reasonable and terrifying...

That's something that have to be tested - I would expect that mirror prions would misfold normal proteins too, but it's dependent on details of chemical process.

Prions are scary.

Prions are not mirrored but misfolded proteins.

I reacted the same way, so glad you brought it up for people who know more about biology to calm us down :)

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