Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2022 July 30

= July 30 =

Orthopoxvirus VP37 envelope
What is the VP37 envelope mentioned here. Tecovirimat "acts by inhibiting the activity of the orthopoxvirus VP37 envelope wrapping protein". No mention of VP37 on Wikipedia. Uhooep (talk) 12:17, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * There's a fuller account at 10.3390/v2112409 (open-access) which describes it as the protein encoded by the F13L gene, namely "a highly conserved 37 KDa peripheral membrane protein". We have an article about viral envelopes which is relevant and more about the organisms at poxviridae. The UniProt search here shows a number of F13L hits and leads one to realise the whole topic of genes + proteins they encode pretty rapidly gets messy! Mike Turnbull (talk) 16:29, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Covid re-infection
President Biden tested positive for covid a few weeks ago, quarantined til testing negative, came out of quarantine and did public stuff for a few days, and has now tested positive again.

Leaving aside that the person involved was Biden, is this a fairly common pattern in the covid diagnostics world? Is it more likely to indicate two separate infections, or a single infection that remitted to below the test sensitivity before relapsing? I hope I'm using those terms properly. If they treated it with something like Paxlovid and didn't wipe it out, could what was left become drug resistant, like what happens with antibiotics? Thanks. 2601:648:8201:5DD0:0:0:0:34C5 (talk) 20:11, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This has some more info, maybe enough to consider my question answered. Thanks all. 2601:648:8201:5DD0:0:0:0:34C5 (talk) 20:44, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It's thought that the Paxlovid suppresses the virus (to below detectable levels) while the patient is taking it, and the virus then makes a comeback or "rebound". Abductive  (reasoning) 05:22, 31 July 2022 (UTC)