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To make an infectious clone, we need a DNA copy of a virus. SARS-CoV-2 is a large, RNA virus.
Making chimeric Mr. Potato Head viruses helps us study things like whether GI Joe arms provide any clear benefit for an important task in the virus life cycle like lifting weights or binding human ACE2 receptors. Researchers in Boston took the Spike gene of Omicron and put it into the backbone of an ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strain: to test the function of the Omicron spike gene for binding ACE2, immune evasion, etc. Chimeras help us study “genotype-to-phenotype” (G2P) relationships. Virologists study G2P in order to learn things like whether some viruses are more likely to cause a pandemic than others.
Researchers cut and paste viruses to create chimeric infectious clones, and these cool type IIS enzymes let them cut and paste viruses without leaving duct-tape or massive Frankenstein-esque stitches all over the viral genome. However, while assembling viruses via type IIS DNA assembly doesn’t leave a scar, we found it does leave a very subtle but identifiable fingerprint.
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UNQUOTE
https://web.archive.org/web/20221102044 ... sars-cov-2
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Guess how all this is subsidized. And who is paying for it at the bottom of the "food chain".