Unique Binding Ability of Delta Variant.

• Position: COVID-19

Unlike other SARS-CoV-2 variants, the Delta variant can attach to copies of itself, forming larger aggregations, or clumps, of viral particles, suggests a study by scientists at the National Institutes of Health. The researchers theorize that this linking property may have played a role in the ability of Delta to spread more rapidly than all the variants that preceded it.

The Delta spike protein enables the virus to bind to cells and begin the process of infecting them. In laboratory studies, the researchers observed this action by using leukemia viruses from mice that were stripped of disease-causing genes but engineered to have the spike protein on their surface, known as pseudotyped Delta particles. The scientists watched the spike proteins binding to one another to form aggregations, which previous research suggests increases the chances of viral spread.

Viruses deep inside the aggregation are protected from drying out, from antiviral...