Transcription
How long does the spike protein last post-vaccination? It's one of the more common questions I've been receiving from our YouTube audience. And finally, a friend of mine sent me a paper that attempts to answer just that very question. So, of course, we're going to be talking about that, but not just how long it might last. Another super interesting aspect of that publication was the author's theory as to why it might last as long as they have observed. So that's also very, very interesting. So stay tuned for that.
My name is Dr. Michar Rashik of Marage Genomics. Welcome to the capital of my birth, home country. All right, so about the vaccines—what's really interesting about vaccines, the mRNA vaccines, both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, is that they use this specific sequence which provided two specific mutations into the design of the spike protein. The sequences were not identical; the mRNA sequences not identical. That's because you can have different genetic codes to produce the same proteins. Remember, you use the genetic code, such as mRNA, as a template, and from that you produce the protein, which is the biological robot that does the work. And a protein is made out of amino acids. How these amino acids are put together in a long chain is determined by the mRNA blueprint. That's how you can have a slightly different genetic code while the outcome is the same.
In both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, the way they produce the spike protein introduces specific mutations. They put these amino acids called prolines in two specific spots, side by side. And what these mutations did achieve is they basically prevented the spike protein from being able to be used to help induce the spike protein virus with adjacent cells. Normally, that's what happens with the virus; of course, we're not dealing with the virus, we're just dealing with the spike protein. But basically, it prevents the spike protein from grabbing an adjacent cell and fusing whatever has that spike protein, whether it's a virus or cell, with that cell that the spike protein grabs. Because that's the role of the spike protein: the spike protein is supposed to first attach itself to the receptor, and then it unfolds these arms, and these arms will grab a cell and then bring that cell towards the virus or a cell that has the spike protein, and they would fuse. So, of course, we don't want to see that post-vaccination. So these mutations were introduced that prevented these arms from being able to unfold. These mutations introduce two specific residues, proteins. However, what they also—because of these specific mutations—what that meant is that well, you change the sequence, obviously, of the protein, and if you change the sequence of the protein, it changed how well it basically changed how that protein could be analyzed. And there's a way you can digest proteins in general, and there's an enzyme, which basically means a biological robot that can cut up other proteins, called trypsin. We talked about that in the past in one of our videos. And trypsin basically can use trypsin to cut off proteins into fragments. But this enzyme, trypsin, cuts the proteins at a very specific residue, such as arginines and lysines. Now that's irrelevant; normally doesn't really matter what these are, except one of those residues that trypsin would normally be cutting—that was the residue that was mutated in those mRNA vaccine or spike proteins. So that residue was substituted for that proline amino acid, which means that spike protein from Pfizer is no longer cleaved by that trypsin enzyme the same way that a spike protein from a virus would be. And this way you can actually distinguish the presence of vaccinal spike protein in the blood versus spike protein that is from a virus. So that means virus spike protein—it will be cleaved and would produce specific fragments. And because you removed one of those cleavage sites, the vaccinal spike protein produces a specific longer fragment that is only present after vaccination. This allowed the authors to monitor basically how long the vaccinal spike protein is present in the blood of vaccinated individuals.
So what they did is they took 20 individuals who were vaccinated with mRNA vaccines; they took 20 unvaccinated individuals who never had COVID—so these were controls—and they also took 20 individuals who were unvaccinated and had COVID. Basically, those who were unvaccinated clearly never demonstrated the presence of that longer fragment, meaning clearly obviously they did not have the vaccinal spike protein. That makes sense that they wouldn't have because they were not vaccinated. Now here's the interesting part: those who were vaccinated, about 50% of those, they were able to detect that extra-long fragment that—because of the mutations in the vaccinal spike protein—and that in about 50%, so about 10, approximately 10 people, showed the presence of this vaccinal spike protein. But what's interesting is how long did that fragment last in the blood? And they were able to show that it was either from 30 days, somewhere around 30 days, to 187 days, I believe. So, and that's that's the surprise—like how long it is. It's the first paper that I see—maybe there were others, I just—the first one that I personally see that actually showed you the length of how long the spike protein post-vaccination can last in the blood of individuals. They also claimed that they looked at other biological samples besides blood as well, and spike protein was present in there as well, but they said that's in the upcoming publication. So they did not comment anymore on that; that would have been very interesting to find out more on this. So, but here it is—that's basically how long we might be expecting for this protein to last.
But here is now what I personally thought was the most interesting part of the entire paper: their explanation as to why they see the spike protein for this long. Unfortunately, they did not make any comment on these outs. By the way, these individuals, most of them were Italian researchers from Naples, one of the universities in Naples. But anyway, they didn't comment as to how long a protein would be expected. They clearly started to theorize as to how is it possible that you could be seeing this vaccinal spike protein for so long, so clearly insinuating that this is much longer than would be expected. And it's their theories, proposed theories, as to how could this be happening that I found very interesting because no one—I haven't heard anyone else comment on this. So number one theory suggesting why could we be seeing this for so long: number one is the possibility that perhaps the mRNA is getting inside the genomes of the cells that took up the vaccine. No further comments, just that, which is very interesting because, of course, we've heard this many times before—that's not possible, that's not possible—and that was the first suggestion. Boom. Second suggestion, which they claim is most unlikely, is that they said that perhaps the spike protein is constitutively active because of the mRNA template. Now, the mRNA template that was used in the mRNA vaccines is not—does not use the genetic code that is typically found in nature, not at all. It uses these types of nucleotides called pseudouridines, which basically allows the mRNA to last longer, and it's not as immunogenic, meaning it does not trigger identification by the immune system. That's one of the reasons why it was used and why the mRNA vaccines were finally successful as a concept of being able to use this technology. But because of that, these others suggest that perhaps it means that the spike protein is constitutively active, meaning—they didn't elaborate on what this means, what—how I understand what they meant by that is that these mRNA templates last a very long time, and they continuously produce this—really, to the production of the spike protein. But they also said that's the least likely possibility in their opinion; they just simply quoted that. And the last one, which I thought was very interesting as well, and I think it's the one that they favored, is that perhaps the mRNA template from this vaccine is being taken up by the bacteria that is present in the blood. And they're saying, look, in the last 50 years, we've learned that there is a microbiome present in human blood as well, and it is possible that it's the bacteria that take up the vaccine as well, have their template, and as a consequent, might end up—the product might end up producing the spike protein—and why the spike protein is present for so long in the bloodstream. So super interesting, just—and I thought I would share this with you. And the biggest surprise is, of course, why does it last for so long? And the authors claim—of course, we should be studying this further and gain more details on this and figure out what's going on. All right, that's all I have for you in this quick video. Thanks for your support; thanks for, of course, always providing all the questions. We try to answer some of them. Please share the video if you haven't already, or—right, please share the video because that's how we grow. Please subscribe if you haven't already; again, that's also how we grow, which obviously helps us a lot. And also check out our Patreon account where we post additional videos that we deem are not appropriate for for this—for the consumption on this channel. And as always, I look forward to seeing you in the future installment, and bye for now, everyone. Ciao. [Music]