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. 2021 Jul 26;22(20):2946–2950. doi: 10.1002/cbic.202100346

Figure 4.

Figure 4

NPs produced by healthy bacteria in mucus are an environmental selection pressure for the rise of variants of respiratory viruses like SARS‐CoV‐2. (a) NPs like bile acids and/or NRPs produced by healthy bacteria interfere with the WT‐RBD binding to the ACE2 receptor. The N501Y mutation or other mutations interfere with the binding of NPs with the RBD and/or increase the interaction of RBD with the ACD2 receptor. Consequently, they enable the virus to scape NPs of healthy bacteria and thus, they increase the infectivity of the virus. (b) Upon viral entry to the human body, the spike glycoprotein of the virus interacts withNPs produced by bacteria in the mucus. These NPs act as an environmental selection pressure together with antibody response leading to the emergence of new variants of SARS‐CoV‐2 with higher infectivity and/or mortality rates.