Coronavirus: SARS-CoV-2 virus changes its shape, perhaps hiding from antibodies - study

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While this might explain why it's been so hard to find effective treatments for the disease, it also opens up potential new avenues of investigation for a cure or vaccine, scientists say. Photo credit: Getty

The virus which causes COVID-19 has a "very complicated" method of attaching itself to our cells, new research has found.

While this might explain why it's been so hard to find effective treatments for the disease, it also opens up potential new avenues of investigation for a cure or vaccine, scientists say.

In a recent paper published in journal Nature, researchers from the Francis Crick Institute in London and Sun Yat-sen University in China explain how they mixed the virus with an enzyme called ACE2, found on the outside of human cells, which the virus latches onto with its spikes. 

The mixture was snap frozen and observed under a cryo-electron microscope, which revealed the virus' spike protein contorting itself in 10 different ways. 

"It's a very complicated receptor binding process compared to most virus spike proteins," Donald Benton, study co-author, told LiveScience. "Flu and HIV have a more simple activation process."

Just what it's doing remains a mystery. The spike can be seen changing shape once it's attached, possibly to get a better grip. Alternatively, it might be "a way of the virus protecting itself from recognition by antibodies", said Dr Benton - in other words, it's hiding in plain sight by changing its shape.

"It's very hard to know," added co-author Antoni Wrobel.

The spike's changing shape though has revealed more surfaces that potential vaccines and drugs could target, they say. 

We can then start to think about therapeutics that would fit somewhere either in the receptor surface or somewhere in the spike itself that then act as drugs," said Dr Wrobel.

The virus has killed at least 1 million people since emerging in central China at the start of the year. Dozens of vaccines are in development.