Recently, the latest research from the University of Sweden shows that new crown vaccine mRNA can be reversely transcribed into DNA. This explosive news instantly became a hot search and became the subject of discussion. After all, we have been told for the past two years that mRNA vaccines including Pfizer and Moderna will not integrate with human cellular DNA. Now that Swedish University has confirmed such news, what impact will this incident have on humanity? Are GMOs coming? Today I will talk to you about this matter.
1, is the conclusion of Swedish University reliable?
First of all: This has a reliable conclusion, but it may not be much the same as everyone's understanding. What is the conclusion of
? mRNA vaccine can be reverse transcribed into DNA. But is it integrated into the genome? unknown.
is actually more surprising than this article. Another article was published on pnas. It is believed that SARS-CoV-2 virus can be integrated into the genome.
mRNA vaccine itself uses a fragment of SARS-CoV-2 (spike) , so this risk cannot be ruled out.
Low we will introduce it step by step.
2, mRNA vaccine reverse transcription becomes DNA
At the beginning, let’s briefly talk about a concept: reverse transcription , ( reverse transcription) is the process of synthesizing DNA using RNA as a template, that is, DNA synthesis under the guidance of RNA.
is the important reverse arrow in Central Law , which makes up for the defects of the Central Law.
Howard Martin Temin won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine .
In fact, when the new crown mRNA vaccine appeared, someone raised this question. Even before that, everyone was worried about this issue and worried that mRNA reverse transcription became DNA, which would be a bit troublesome.
Although the CDC said on its official website: "Our cells break down mRNA and clear it within a few days after receiving the mRNA vaccine." However, this statement can only be said to be more pleasing to the eyes of serious professionals.
Because, no matter what mRNA vaccine it is, you are essentially mRNA, then cannot rule out the problem of reverse transcription into DNA by reverse transcriptase in the body , so mRNA vaccine only existed in "concept or laboratory" before new crown and did not enter clinical practice. The new crown is coming, and the mRNA vaccine is forced to come on the stage, breaking through many restrictions at once and entering humans. Then it is inevitable to pay attention to its reality.
Last year, pnas published the issue of SARS-CoV-2 retrotranscription for the first time. It was found that SARS-CoV-2 was reverse transcribed into DNA.
This time, the study published in "Current Issues in Molecular Biology Journal" once again proves this conclusion: mRNA has indeed reverse transcription into DNA.
Detection of DNA amplicons of BNT162b2 in Huh7 cells treated with BNT162b2.
This paragraph means that using DNA amplification, it was found that DNA fragments after the reverse transcription of the BNT162b2 vaccine appeared in Huh7 cells.
So, at this time, there is actually another question: do the reverse transcription fragments exist in a free state? Or integrated into the genome?
3, controversy: or is it integrated into the genome? Is
DNA free or is it integrated into the human genome? , this issue is even more critical.
That is, both studies have confirmed that SARS-CoV-2 and mRNA vaccines will be reverse transcribed into DNA.
If it were the former, it would be fine. After all, there is still a lot of free DNA in the human body, and we have used a lot.
For example, there will be free DNA in cancer. But what if, what if, what if, is this DNA integrated into the genome?
, that's trouble. This is controversial in the two articles.
In the 2021 pnas article, the author argued that SARS-CoV-2 was indeed integrated into the genome.
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formed the chimeric genome A human–viral chimeric read pair supporting viral integration.
However, in this latest article, no integration into the genome was found (because chromosome sequencing was not done), but reverse transcription was observed.
4, what does the above mean and what consequences will it cause?
. Let’s first talk about reverse transcription to become DNA. This means:
The advantage is: mRNA vaccine may not degrade so quickly. After all, after reverse transcription becomes DNA, it is more stable and can be transcribed again, so it can be used for a long time.
The disadvantage is: A piece of DNA that stays in a long time will continue to have an impact, which is a consumption for immunity, and excessive immunity is not a good thing.
, but what about integrating into the genome? That's a very dangerous thing.
, where will DNA be inserted into the genome?
This is a very dangerous thing. When I talked about GMOs before, I mentioned this issue. When we were doing GMOs, we were more worried about random insertion. In fact, to this day, even Crispr Cas9 has this problem.
means that the safe area you think you insert it may not be safe, and it will even be inserted randomly in other locations. If it is inserted into the gene, it will be embarrassing, which may destroy the gene function and cause serious diseases. When doing genetically modified, you will encounter problems that you can only find one or two after doing it. In addition to the difficulty of integrating it into the genome itself, it is more about inserting it into the gene, causing the gene to be destroyed and then unable to survive.
, stabilizes genetic .
is integrated into the genome, which means that it can be inherited stably and continue from generation to generation.
This is even more troublesome. Until today, we still have a strong sense of human genome , because human evolution has only formed more than 3 billion base pairs . If you add DNA fragments manually, it means that genetically modified people have appeared.
This is a very scary thing. But it really happens, there is nothing we can do. After all, there is about 10% of the viral genes in the human genome, but I didn’t expect that we could actually witness the epic process!
So, the core controversy in these two studies is: Is integrated into the genome?
5, supplementary instructions
Let me explain here, why are these two articles put together? Because mRNA vaccine essentially places part of SARS-CoV-2 on mRNA vaccine vector. There are the same fragments between
. If it can be integrated, there is no essential difference in theory, so we need to pay attention.
However, on the other hand, SARS-CoV-2 can be integrated anyway, so it is understandable that mRNA vaccine integration is not wrong.
By the way, both articles have caused controversy in the industry. Everyone believes that their research methods may have some problems and need improvement.
Looking forward to more research. However, in biology, there is no need to panic when it comes to treatment. After all, the current COVID-19 is an objective risk, and who knows the long-term risk?
We are now using the inactivated vaccine and subunit vaccine in China. One of these two is a dead virus and the other is a protein. This problem does not exist.
2022 paper: mRNA is reverse transcribed into DNA, but has not studied whether is integrated into the genome
Aldén, Markus, et al. "Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line."Current Issues in Molecular Biology44.3 (2022): 1115-1126.
2021 paper: SARS-cov-2 is reverse transcribed and integrated into the genome.
Zhang, Liguo, et al. "Reverse-transcribed SARS-CoV-2 RNA can integrate into the genome of cultured human cells and can be expressed in patient-derived tissues."Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences118.21 (2021).
