The Science Fiction World of Xueba

Chapter 399: Endogenous retrovirus

After a moment of silence, Ashford reiterated, "Professor Pang, I still have a merciless invitation."

"Please speak."

Ashford said: "Professor Pang, I hope you can help me save Angela before tearing his face with Spencer. I know you and that lady Alice are not ordinary people. In your ability, you have Way to get Angela back from Spencer. "

Pang Xuelin smiled slightly and nodded: "Relax, Dr. Ashford, since I can save Angela once, I can save her a second time."

Ashford was grateful: "Professor Pang, thank you."

Then, Pang Xuelin talked with Ashford about other issues. It was not until nine o'clock in the evening that Ashford pushed the wheelchair and slowly returned to the villa.

Pang Xuelin smiled, and when Ashford's back completely disappeared at the door, he said, "Come out, everyone has gone, and it doesn't make sense to hide again."

The night wind blew the leaves of the green belt, and yellow leaves fell from time to time.

After a while, a black figure stood out from behind a sycamore tree.

"How did you find me?"

Alice wondered.

"I heard your breath."

Pang Xuelin smiled slightly.

There was a flash of shock in Alice's eyes. After the T virus transformation, her control of her body was a qualitative leap.

Breathing is very soothing on weekdays, and it is a windy day tonight. In this case, Pang Xuelin can even distinguish his breathing from the noisy surroundings, which is enough to show that the man in front of him is powerful.

Alice no longer struggled with this topic, her beautiful eyebrows frowned slightly, wondering: "What do you think Ashford said, can really help us find a way to deal with the T virus?"

Pang Xuelin shook his head and said, "I don't know, but Ashford said that starting with non-coding RNA is indeed feasible."

Alice said: "I don't understand academic stuff. I only kill people. If you want to kill or save someone, I can help you."

Pang Xuelin smiled and said, "Thank you, but you don't need to kill anyone. I have another important task for you."

"What task?" Alice curiously.

Pang Xuelin said: "Although the umbrella company also hopes to obtain new virus manufacturing methods from me, the Kempten base cannot always rely on the material support of the umbrella company. Next, I hope you and Gil can lead a team to sweep around In the cities and towns of China, we collect useful materials, including food, oil, various machinery, equipment, vehicles, etc. In the coming year, in addition to building bases, our main task is to store all kinds of materials. "

Alice froze slightly and nodded. "No problem."

Pang Xuelin hesitated and said, "There is one more thing that you need to do."

"what's up?"

"I talked to Gil before. We now have mainly light weapons and limited reserves. I need someone who can lead a team to clear Hill Air Force Base in Utah ..."

"Hill Air Force Base?"

Alice seemed puzzled.

Pang Xuelin said: "Hill Base is located approximately 30 kilometers from Salt Lake City, Utah, and is home to the 419th Fighter Wing, the 388th Fighter Wing, and the US Army ’s first 34th Front Fighter Squadron with F35A. In addition, the US Air Force Logistics Center Deploy F22 fighters, F16 fighters, A10 attack aircraft and C130 transport aircraft around the world to provide important bases for engineering and maintenance services. It also provides support and maintenance for active B-2, B1B bomber and militia III intercontinental missile weapon systems. Therefore, This is one of the three major logistics centers of the U.S. Air Force and one of the five maintenance bases. There may even be nuclear bombs in this base ... "

Alice's eyes narrowed suddenly: "Are you going to take a nuclear bomb against the umbrella company?"

Pang Xuelin shook his head with a smile and said, "Just in case, if the nuclear bomb is found, I won't get it to the Kempten base."

Alice nodded thoughtfully, and said, "Sweeping Hill Air Force Base, let Jill organize the candidates. There shouldn't be too many people. I'll take the team at that time."

"Okay, then you work hard."

"You're welcome. I hope you remember your previous promise."

Having said that, Alice stopped paying attention to Pang Xuelin and turned to hide into the darkness silently.

Pang Xuelin smiled slightly and didn't say more.

Early the next morning, Pang Xuelin began to get Gil and Claire to assign tasks.

At present, whether it is food, oil or all aspects of material consumption, the Kempten base depends on the umbrella company.

Moreover, the Kempten base does not have an airport, and the umbrella company can only use a Osprey-like tilt rotor to provide material support for the Kempten base.

Therefore, in order to completely control the base in his own hands, Pang Xuelin must let the army inside the base move as quickly as possible to collect materials from the outside on a large scale.

Having arranged their tasks for Jill and Claire, Pang Xuelin called for Spruce, Berkeley, Huang Yu and others to introduce them to Ashford.

Let Pang Xuelin have some unexpected things, these people even knew Ashford.

From their mouths, Pang Xuelin learned that Ashford is also a well-known figure in the life sciences and has made several Juno-level achievements.

It's just because of working for an umbrella company. Ashford is not active in academia.

But since everyone knows it, it's better for Pang Xuelin.

The underground laboratory inside the base was quickly launched and was devoted to the research of T virus.

Xiaodongbei, a doctoral student in the medical field, was also drawn into the research group by Pang Xuelin.

...

Half a year passed, and in the past six months, Pang Xuelin spent most of his time and energy on the laboratory and the study of biology.

Before Pang Xuelin was in the world of "The Ninth District", he had specialized in the theoretical knowledge of biology.

But at that time, he had not been transformed by a genetic optimizer. Therefore, although he studied in the world in the "Ninth District" for three years, Pang Xuelin's level was not high enough. At best, it was only insight, compared with the biochemical crisis Scholars from all over the world have to come a little wider, but their research depth is far less than that of Spruce.

Now, after genetic modification, Pang Xuelin's memory, learning ability, and speed of thinking are beyond ordinary people.

And biology is not like mathematics. Many things in biology are more inclined to memory and experiment.

Therefore, Pang Xuelin learns easily.

The only problem is that biological theories are fragmented and weakly related to each other.

For example, the interaction between different protein molecules, non-transcribed RNA molecules, and physiological functions are all a separate system.

In addition, there are tens of thousands of protein molecules and RNA molecules. Even in the human body, there are many life phenomena that have not been discovered or cannot be explained by existing theories.

For example, why does a DNA molecule only replicate once in a cycle?

How does the idea of ​​a DNA molecule affect gene expression?

What is the intrinsic relationship between protein dynamics and its function?

How does the gene regulatory network respond to noise?

How the nuclear genome is coordinated with the extranuclear genome and so on.

...

The lack of these theories can actually only explain that human beings have a relatively limited understanding of life.

And because the study time is relatively short and biological coverage is too wide, Pang Xuelin has focused on virology, genetics, biochemistry, biophysics, molecular biology, computational biology, and bioinformatics.

In less than half a year, Pang Xuelin's understanding of the T virus has far surpassed that of Spruce, Berkeley, and others, and he has not even been in the T virus field for decades. under.

In the past six months ~ lightnovelpub.net ~ Under the leadership of Dr. Ashford and Pang Xuelin, the Kempten base has carried out a very in-depth study of the T virus.

Thanks to Alice's cooperation, Pang Xuelin and Ashford made an in-depth comparison of the evolution of the T virus in the body of the zombie with the evolution of the body in the body of Alice. They found that the T virus in Alice's body turned into a Endogenous retrovirus.

The so-called endogenous retroviruses start with the pathogenicity of the virus.

Virus is the smallest living body discovered by humans so far. It has no cell structure and must rely on the infected host cells to provide the energy and materials it needs to complete life activities.

So far, diseases such as AIDS, rabies, avian influenza, influenza A, SARS, new crown virus, smallpox, and Ebola have been caused by viruses.

Therefore, in many people's minds, the virus is always linked to disease and death.

But in reality, not all viruses cause disease.

Among viruses that infect humans, some viruses do not cause significant damage to infected cells or organs after they enter host cells.

Some viruses can coexist with the host cells for a long period of time, and they do not affect the host's daily life activities. Other viruses can even benefit the host by giving it the ability to cope with environmental stress.

For example, adeno-associated virus (AAV), the vast majority of people have been infected with it, but did not cause any disease.

Adeno-associated virus replicates and reproduces in the human body, but does not affect the daily life activities of the host cells.

It is with such characteristics that scientists have deleted some genes encoding AAV and constructed a recombinant AAV virus vector. The recombinant vector can be inserted into some therapeutic genes and introduced into the human body through AAV, so that it can be stably expressed in human body for a long time , And then treat some genetic diseases or cancer.

The other is the so-called endogenous retrovirus (ERV).

During the evolution of this virus, it formed a very close relationship with human cells. It can be said that the normal operation of the human body cannot be separated from the help of ERV.

After analyzing the entire human genome sequence, scientists found that at least eight percent of the human genome sequence is derived from ERV.

Studies have shown that 1743 genes in the human body start or stop transcription from the ERV promoter sequence. Some ERV promoter sequences can even determine that downstream genes can only be found in certain tissues or organs. Time period can be expressed.

Because of this, to a certain extent, ERV sequences can affect gene expression in the human body to a large extent, and then have a very significant impact on the regulation and evolution direction of the human genome.

...

That night, the underground laboratory.

"Professor Pang, your genetic test report is out."

Xiao Dongbei came out of the lab happily, waving a report in his hand.

"Come here and take a look."

Before Pang Xuelin's voice was heard, Ashford and Spruce and some others couldn't wait.

Earlier they had completed genetic testing of Alice and found that part of the T virus in Alice's body had been transformed into an ERV sequence.

This is why Alice did not become a zombie after she was infected with the T virus.

The T virus transformed into an ERV sequence, while enhancing the life activity of Alice cells, did not let the cells get out of control like zombies, but greatly improved Alice's physical functions.

This is why Alice is like Superman.

After completing the test of Alice, Ashford and they turned to Pang Xuelin.

They can't wait to see what happened to T virus in Pang Xuelin's body.

The test report fell into Ashford's hands for the first time, but after carefully reading it from beginning to end, Ashford's brow could not help but frown deeply.

Later, he handed the test report to Spruce aside. After Spruce read it, he handed it over to Berkeley, and then transferred it from Berkeley to Huang Yu. Finally, the report appeared in In the hands of Pang Xuelin.

Pang Xuelin glanced through the report ~ lightnovelpub.net ~ A little disappointed and relieved, he said lightly: "What do you think of this report?"

The report showed that Pang Xuelin was not infected with T virus, and even ERV sequences homologous to T virus were not detected.

In this case, even if it is over the umbrella company, it is difficult to find the specific formula of the gene optimizer through genetic analysis of Pang Xuelin.

Ashford was a little curious: "Professor Pang, wasn't the T virus that you injected yourself in the hive laboratory?"

Pang Xuelin shook his head and said, "To be honest, the situation was urgent at that time, and I just temporarily thought of injecting the mutant T virus into my body. As for the sequence of that virus, I had no time to test.

Ashford frowned slightly and said, "You and Alice should be infected with two completely different viruses. The T virus in Alice's body is transformed into an ERV sequence, but in your body, what has become, because there is no original It ’s difficult for us to figure out the gene sequence of the virus, unless you do a large-scale sequencing analysis of your genes, but the workload in this ... ”

Ashford laughed bitterly.

Even the Umbrella Company's research on human genes is quite limited. What if all the gene sequences in Pang Xuelin were measured?

I don't know which part of the gene is working.

As for the transcription of each of these genes, a cell test is performed to find out which gene fragments are working.

This is basically impossible.

The amount of work in it is too huge. Even if the umbrella company is given a hundred years, it may not be able to complete such work.