The SARS-CoV-2 Hydra, a tiny monster from the 21st century: Thermodynamics of the BA.5.2 and BF.7 variants

Brief History of Thermodynamic Research on Microorganisms

“…The result of competition was the suppression of the old variants with newer ones, which exhibited greater infectivity [Eales et al, 2022]. All variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been chemically and thermodynamically characterized [Popovic, 2023b[Popovic, , 2023c[Popovic, , 2023d[Popovic, , 2022b[Popovic, , 2022c[Popovic, , 2022d During the time evolution of the virus, through acquisition of mutations, changes occurred in the elemental composition, information content in the genome and spike glycoprotein, towards formation of a greater binding affinity for the receptor [Makowski et al, 2022]. An increase in binding affinity resulted in a greater antigen-receptor binding rate.…”

“…The driving force for reactions of polymerization is Gibbs energy of biosynthesis [Popovic, 2022a;Demirel, 2014]. This is why Gibbs energy determines biosynthesis rate, according to the phenomenological equation [Popovic, 2023c[Popovic, , 2023dvon Stockar, 2013a;Demirel, 2014].…”

“…Replacement of one or more nucleotides with another (which is the basis of mutation) leads to change in empirical formula of the thermodynamic system (bacteria or virus). Empirical formulas of viruses have been reported in the literature [Degueldre, 2021;Şimşek et al, 2021;Popovic, 2023bPopovic, , 2023cPopovic, , 2023d.…”

“…Mutations that appeared during 3 years on SARS-CoV-2, from the Hu-1 to XBB.1.5 variant, have been reported in the literature [Degueldre, 2021;Şimşek et al, 2021;Popovic, 2023bPopovic, , 2023cPopovic, , 2023dPopovic, , 2022bPopovic, , 2022cPopovic, , 2022dPopovic and Popovic, 2022;Minceva, 2021a, 2020b]. Chemical and thermodynamic properties of various viruses can be found in the literature [Popovic, 2022i, 2022j, 2022k, 2023e].…”

“…During the last 3 years, the atom counting method has been developed for calculating empirical formulas of microorganisms [Popovic, 2022m]. Empirical formulas of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles have been reported by [Degueldre, 2021;Şimşek et al, 2021;Popovic, 2023bPopovic, , 2023cPopovic, , 2023dPopovic, , 2022cPopovic, , 2022dPopovic and Minceva, 2020b]. Thermodynamic properties of human host tissues have been reported in the literature [Xu et al, 2022;Popovic, 2022i;Popovic and Minceva, 2020c].…”