A team of researchers from Zurich has identified proteins in the blood of patients that indicate immune system dysfunction and chronic inflammation. The researchers hope to use the results of the study to better diagnose "long-lasting Covid" in the future and pave the way for more effective treatment of the disease.
This is reported by UNN with reference to Science.
Details
Scientists tested blood samples from 113 patients infected with Sars-CoV-2 and 39 healthy controls. All participants were followed for one year. After 6 months, 40 of the infected patients had persistent symptoms and were diagnosed with long-term Covid.
Using a proteomic approach that consisted of comparing the levels of 6596 proteins in the serum of all participants, the authors tried to identify potential blood markers in patients with long-term Covid.
The results showed that these patients had specific changes in serum protein levels, indicating increased activation of the complement system, a component of the immune system involved in the fight against pathogens.
The complement system plays a dual role, firstly, in regulating the immune system, and secondly, in interfering with blood clotting factors and blood vessel. This mechanism is usually activated during the acute phase of the disease, but returns to normal when the infection is over
According to study leader Onur Boiman, who is director of the Clinic of Immunology at the University of Zurich Hospital, in patients with Long Covid, "the complement system does not return to its resting state as it should.
In addition, patients with Long Covid had increased levels of damage to various body cells in their blood, including red blood cells, platelets, and blood vessels.
If the complement system remains activated, it attacks healthy cells in various organs and damages or destroys them. With this discovery, we have found another piece of the Long Covid puzzle that explains why this disease can lead to such a wide range of symptoms
According to Boyman, the new findings may contribute to a better understanding of the disease. Scientists hope that based on the knowledge of the role of the complement system, it will be possible to develop a treatment for long-term Covid.
There are already companies developing complement inhibitors
At the same time, it is still too early to derive direct therapeutic concepts from the new data, scientists believe. There are also doubts that it will be possible to identify a universal biomarker for long-term Covid.
The different symptoms show very clearly that there are very different clinical forms
The researchers also note that in the sense of "long-lasting" Covid, we are talking about several biological markers that are likely specific to each clinical form.
Another limitation is that the identification of biomarkers for long-standing Covid may depend on other parameters such as gender or age.
We know that long-standing Covid tends to be more common in women and that age may influence differential activation of the complement system. Therefore, future studies will need to pay close attention to these parameters
Recall
Chinese scientists have created a deadly virus that is a mutated version of COVID-19. The research was conducted on "humanized" mice, whose brains have a similar genetic makeup to humans. The scientific community did not appreciate the importance of the study. For example, François Ballou, an expert in epidemiology at the Institute of Genetics, University College London, called the study "appalling" and "absolutely meaningless from a scientific point of view.
In Vietnam, ex-ministers, officials, and other officials received various prison sentences for participating in a corruption scheme involving embezzlement of public funds in the procurement of COVID-19 tests.
Also UNN reported that 8 children were hospitalized from the Kyiv Sports Lyceum-Boarding School. 7 of them have already been confirmed to have COVID-19 in the laboratory.