Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag
Open accessAbstract
This paper has been withdrawn by its authors. They intend to revise it in response to comments received from the research community on their technical approach and their interpretation of the results. If you have any questions, please contact the corresponding author.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The fourth most tweeted COVID-19 preprint was a widely criticised and later withdrawn study linking the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to HIV-1 glycoproteins.
“The fourth most tweeted COVID-19 preprint was a widely criticised (and later withdrawn) study linking the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to HIV-1 glycoproteins [23].”
From The evolving role of preprints in the dissemination of COVID-19 research and their impact on the science communication landscape (2021) · cites this paper as [23]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Data, disease and diplomacy: GISAID's innovative contribution to global health
Elbe, S., & Buckland‐Merrett, G. (2017) · Global Challenges · doi:10.1002/gch2.1018 · Cited by 1,928 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Fraser, N., Brierley, L., Dey, G., Polka, J. K., Pálfy, M., Nanni, F., & Coates, J. A. (2021) · PLOS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000959 · Cited by 555 · see citing works
Misinformation in and about science
West, J. D., & Bergstrom, C. T. (2021) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1912444117 · Cited by 391 · see citing works
- Authors
- Pradhan, P., Pandey, A. K., Mishra, A., Gupta, P., Tripathi, P. K., Menon, M. B., Gomes, J., Vivekanandan, P., & Kundu, B.
- Affiliations
- University of Delhi (IN)
- Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IN)
- Corresponding author
- Kundu, Bishwajit
- Venue
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
- Publisher
- openRxiv
- Published
- 2020-01-31
- OpenAlex
- W3003415761
- Cited by
- 198
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 54 · 2021: 40 · 2020: 72
- Type
- posted content
- Language
- en
- Status
- Retracted
- Update notices
- retraction (2020-02-02)
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › vaccines and immunoinformatics approaches
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Virology › HIV Research and Treatment
- Keywords
- SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, HIV-1 gp120, HIV-1 Gag, protein sequence similarity, coronavirus evolution, HIV-1 evolution
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
