Filenews 18 May 2021
Vascular rather than respiratory disease is Covid-19 virus-induced disease, argues researchers at the University of California, San Diego and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
The researchers found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus damages and attacks the vascular system at the cellular level, as transmitted by ERT.
The new findings, which even help explain the multitude of seemingly unrelated complications of Covid-19 and could potentially allow the development of new therapies, were published in a study in the English journal Circulation Research.
According to the study, the characteristic protein spikes of SARS-CoV-2 not only help the virus infect potential hosts, but also play a key role in the disease itself. This could explain why some people get strokes and why other people have problems in other parts of the body.
But what they have in common is that everything has a vascular basis. The work provides clear confirmation and detailed explanation of the mechanism by which the protein spike first damages vascular cells. Researchers working on other coronavirus have long suspected that spike protein contributes to damage to vascular endothelial cells.
The current investigation has documented this process for the first time. During their research, the experts created a type of pseudovirus surrounded by the classic protein spike of SARS-CoV-2, but it did not contain a real virus.
Exposure to this pseudovirus resulted in damage to the lungs and arteries in an animal model.
This proves that the spike alone is enough to cause the disease. Tissue samples showed inflammation in the endothelial cells lining the walls of the pulmonary arteries.
