more off topic SARS.......
cdc.gov
We have been able to culture Coronavirus from two of the patients that we've evaluated so far of the four that we have tissue from. In one patient, the tissue is culturing virus in our laboratories, but in addition we can see the virus, and you can see here pictures of what this virus looks like in tissue cultures. What you see is a circular virus that looks like it has a corona or sort of a crown effect, and that is basically little spikes and protein globules that surround the virus so that it gives it that very characteristic appearance.
This is the enlarged picture, and then over here on the left we see many virus particles as they've been growing in tissue culture, and on a lower power magnification some sense of the size of these particles in the context of an overall cell.
I think the important message here is that we've grown it out of two of the patients that are affected. That, in and of itself, does not imply causality because we have many common respiratory viruses that could be cultured out of patients. But what's interesting to us is not only are we culturing it, but we're finding evidence of it in actual affected tissues.
In one patient, we see the virus in kidney specimens very clearly on the electron microscope. We also have done PCR, which is a way of probing for the genetic material of the virus, and we're finding virus PCR, very specific evidence of that, in lung tissue, as well as the kidney in this individual patient.
Also, this patient, when tested with an antibody, in an antibody test to the virus, had a negative antibody test at the very beginning of the illness, and by the end of the illness that antibody test had become positive. So, in other words, the patient seroconverted using a very specific assay for this new Coronavirus.
We have evidence of an infection in seven other patients that we've evaluated so far. The evidence is in a variety of forms. A total of three patients have seroconverted, meaning they had a negative test and then a positive test in paired serum later in their illness, and we're actively getting late serum now from many of the suspected cases so that we can see if others will seroconvert as their illness progresses as well.
We also are finding evidence of the virus genetic material in lung secretions, in lung tissue and in many, many other samples. So as the day progresses, and as the week progresses, we will be looking at more specimens with more tests. And in collaboration with our partners in the global arena, we hope to be able to ascertain whether this really is related to the onset of disease and, if so, what is the relationship.
This, in scientific terms, is very strong evidence supporting Coronavirus as an etiology, but we know from sequencing pieces of the virus DNA that it is not identical to the Coronaviruses that we've seen in the past. So this may very well be a new or emerging Coronavirus infection, but we also are very respectful of the findings of other laboratories that are collaborating in this investigation, and it's very premature to assign a cause or to make dogmatic statements about the etiology. We're still learning as we go, and we will maintain that spirit of collaboration. |
