{"id":167,"date":"2020-10-07T18:19:52","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T18:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1322179"},"modified":"2020-10-07T18:19:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T18:19:52","slug":"new-algorithm-suggests-horses-and-camels-are-susceptible-to-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=167","title":{"rendered":"New algorithm suggests horses and camels are susceptible to COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A new algorithm that predicts the susceptibility of different animals to COVID-19 suggests that horses and camels are at increased risk of catching the virus.<\/p>\n

The project<\/a> was initiated by Jacquelyn Brown, a staff scientist at Vanderbilt University and avid equestrian, after she learned that dogs and cats could be infected with COVID-19:<\/span><\/p>\n

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I became worried about other animals that might act as reservoirs for the disease or be at risk. Since MERS infects camels, I was concerned about what would happen if my horse could get it?! Horses have massive lungs and a sensitive respiratory system, and we humans often touch their noses and mouths.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Brown and her team began their work by applying a mix of genetic sequence alignment and structural analysis of the receptor protein for the virus \u2013ACE2 \u2014 to a range of species known to be either susceptible or resistant to COVID-19. This revealed five amino acid sites within the protein that affect an animal\u2018s level of vulnerability.<\/p>\n

The team used these sites to develop an algorithm that predicts the susceptibility of other species by analyzing their ACE2 sequences.<\/p>\n

[Read: This AI spots local COVID-19 outbreaks before they\u2019ve spun out of control<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

As well as horses and camels, the algorithm found that the Chinese horseshoe bat has a high risk of catching the virus. It also gave intermediate susceptibility scores to the Malayan pangolin, cow, goat, and sheep.<\/p>\n

The researchers believe these findings can help protect people, wildlife, livestock, and food sources from COVID-19. They also think their approach could be applied to other viruses or during future outbreaks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is also the opportunity to investigate if the identified five sites on ACE2 that most distinguish susceptible from non-susceptible species can be used as targets to develop drugs that inhibit these sites specifically,\u201d added Meena Madhur<\/a>, the associate director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation.<\/p>\n

The team has now made their algorithm public on a website<\/a>, where anyone can upload ACE2 sequences of animals to generate their COVID-19 susceptibility score.<\/span><\/p>\n

Published October 7, 2020 \u2014 18:19 UTC <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new algorithm that predicts the susceptibility of different animals to COVID-19 suggests that horses and camels are at increased risk of catching the virus. The project was initiated by Jacquelyn Brown,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}