Molecular Mimacry

One of my initial concerns with the COVID vaccines was the potential for molecular mimicry. "Molecular mimicry is defined as the theoretical possibility that sequence similarities between foreign and self-peptides are sufficient to result in the cross-activation of autoreactive T or B cells by pathogen-derived peptides." Basically, the vaccine could cause the immune system to see what it thinks is a target but it's actually not. This could cause a variety of auto-immune issues.

You may have seen the videos of people sticking magnets to their arms where they got their COVID vaccines. It appears that some people have an area of magnetic attraction at the site of injection. Looking into the literature, it revealed "a potential sequence similarity between the relatively less-studied cysteine-rich cytoplasmic domain of coronavirus spike proteins and the vertebrate hepcidin protein." To put in layman's terms, our iron regulator has similar molecular sequences as some SARS-Cov-2 spike proteins. IMO, this could cause a localized accumulation of iron from the dysregulation of cellular iron homeostasis. The literature states "iron dysregulation changes may only be at a local cellular/tissue level and not reach a systemic response."

The long term effects of this are unknown and needs to be examined. This could cause no adverse long term effects or it could cause more pronounced issues. The major problem I do see is that no one is looking into it. Our government should be looking into this.

As a side note, the Solanaceae plants (Nightshades) have a similar genetic sequence that could be a potential problem as well. Avoiding those may reduce inflammation for people who are having issues from this.

i find the whole topic of molecular mimicry very interesting

but we seem to have been on the brink of demonstrating its actually a thing that happens, rather than just a theory for a long time now.

i have also read several studies where the authors looked at protein sequences in SARS-CoV-2 and in SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and found what they said were concerningly similar protein sequences in many human proteins.

on the one hand if molecular mimicry is real - then this might explain why COVID is so severe vs other corona viruses - and why some people become so ill and other are asymptomatic and what long covid is.

but also - that there may be a risk of molecular mimicry effects from the very vaccines we are taking to avoid life threatening COVID ( i am not an Anti-Vaxer - just paraphrasing the papers i read)

the authors main point was that we should screen our vaccine programs to remove the elements that have the potential to cause molecular mimicry based on the precautionary principal.

potsnpans said...
I can't say for sure what's going on in those magnet videos.. not taking them at face value myself.

I'd not seen or heard about any such videos, but, after reading this thread, I did a quick search. This is an article on snopes.com that I found:

Do Videos Show Magnets Sticking to People’s Arms After COVID-19 Vaccine?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/magnets-covid-vaccine