Re:Scientists claim to find HIV virus-like insertions in the...
by folli on Friday January 31, 2020 @05:47PM
(#22206731)
For posteriority, here's the link to the Blast results for the second insert: https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?CMD=Get&RID=39ACRKV...
Re:Scientists claim to find HIV virus-like insertions in the...
by im3w1l on Monday February 03, 2020 @07:56AM
(#22223698)
Hello posteriority here! I wanted to reference these comments in a discussion but the links expired :/
Re:Scientists claim to find HIV virus-like insertions in the...
by Palptine on Friday January 31, 2020 @06:09PM
(#22206923)
Large HIV database inflating matches is indeed a big concern. But dismissing one miss matches sounds arbitrary: these segments were not arbitrarily selected, but real insertions on tops of sars.
Re:Scientists claim to find HIV virus-like insertions in the...
by folli on Friday January 31, 2020 @06:15PM
(#22206959)
Again, take any random six letter amino acid sequence and chances are high that it matches to some HIV protein.
I just did the experiment with my first name that is coincidentally 6 letters long, and lo and behold: a match to HIV env protein!
Has my first name now been designed by a bioweapons facility?
Re:Scientists claim to find HIV virus-like insertions in the...
by AnimalMuppet on Friday January 31, 2020 @07:13PM
(#22207381)
> Has my first name now been designed by a bioweapons facility?
No, of course not. Your parents were designed by a bioweapons facility, so that they would choose that name.
;-)
Both inserts 1 and 2 also match to Streptococcus phage, but a bacteriophage would of course not be such a bold claim as HIV matches are.
Also, be aware that because of the scientific interest in HIV, there are hundreds of HIV strains sequenced, a virus known for its mutation rate (especially in these two proteins gp120 and gag, as they are under pressure to mutate in order to evade the immunesystem). So in such a large library of protein sequences one is bound to find a match of a short 6 letter (amino acid) sequence. That's why E values exist to make a statement about the statistical significance.