[unknownOrigin]

I wouldn't exactly call a comparison between gene therapy "isn't quite the same".

Flu shots contain inactivated/weakened flu virus (depending on the version), to the presence of which/antigens the body reacts by creating antibodies.

RNA vaccines are a different technology, which transfect (reprogram in IT speak) your own cells to produce spike proteins similar to the ones sars-cov-2 does (the consensus seems to be that this spike variant is, unlike the real one, harmless and is not free floating) which are then detected by the the body and antibodies are created.

The result is esentially the same, but the way you get there contains an extra step and it is this extra step that is the source of the vast majority of (rare) adverse reactions. Blood clots etc.

The ironic thing is that most people who are very strongly opinionated on this (both sides) have no idea what the actual difference is and blindly trust whatever either the government or a local anti-vax facebook group tells them.

[dogma1138]

That’s not how mRNA vaccines work.

mRNA isn’t gene therapy, it induces cells primarily the dendritic cells of your immune system to produce antigens and their antibodies.

Dendritic cells are essentially your body’s CSI they roam around Hoovering stuff that is floating in your body and analyzing it.

The mRNA is picked up through phagocytosis, is decoded by the ribosome and the cell begins to produce antigens.

The cells in your body then attack the antigens with proteasomes, once the antigens are broken down they’ll be presented in the cell membrane of the dendritic cells for other immune cells to sample and produce antibodies for.

This is really not that different than how deactivated virus or protein based vaccines work, dendritic cells swallow them up analyze them, break down the antigens and present the evidence to the “cops” that then go and hunt down the baddies…

The mRNA vaccine doesn’t hijacks the cells of your body in the same way as viruses do, it doesn’t interact with your DNA or nucleus the same way that retroviruses or well actual gene therapy do.

I really don’t understand why you are spreading this misinformation.

[rssoconnor]

> The result is esentially the same, but the way you get there contains an extra step and it is this extra step that is the source of the vast majority of (rare) adverse reactions. Blood clots etc.

The blood clotting issue was found in the Adenovirus vector vaccines, not the mRNA vaccines.

[greenhatman]

>your own cells to produce spike proteins similar to the ones sars-cov-2 does

Does this destroy the cell used to make the spike proteins? Or does your immune system destroy the cells that made spike proteins?

[dogma1138]

No, it doesn’t work like that mRNA isn’t a virus or virus like it doesn’t hijacks the cell. The mRNA fragments are picked up by dendritic cells and antigens are produced. The antigens (and the mRNA itself) are then attacked by special proteins within your cells that are designed to destroy foreign or malformed proteins and the fragments of those destroyed antigens are then presented in the cell membrane for T and B cells to inspect and produce antibodies against.

[Vecr]

What about cytotoxic T cells? What would prevent them from killing the cell?

[dogma1138]

By the time you have a T Cell response the mRNA and the antigens would be long gone.

[Vecr]

Not if it's a booster, or even the second dose. That's the whole idea of this chain, yeah?