Best News Network

Antibodies may Wreak Havoc Against COVID-19

And the autoantibodies paradoxically also target and interfere with many immune system proteins that are designed to fend off infections, the study found.

says Aaron Ring, assistant professor of immunobiology at Yale and senior author of the paper.

‘Rogue antibodies wreak havoc in severe COVID-19 cases. The development of antibodies to the COVID-19 virus has been the great long-term hope of ending the pandemic. However, immune system turncoats are also major culprits in severe cases of COVID-19.’


It is clear that in many cases the presence of coronavirus drove the creation of the damaging autoantibodies, Ring said. But it is also likely that some COVID-19 patients had pre-existing autoantibodies that made them more susceptible to infection, he said.

Mice with these same autoantibodies were more susceptible to infection by the COVID-19 virus and more likely to die, the authors report. The existence of these long-lived rogue autoantibodies could also help explain why some people infected with COVID-19 can later develop lasting medical symptoms, so-called long COVID cases.

“This could be the unfortunate legacy of the virus,” Ring said. “Our findings reinforce the importance of getting vaccinated. The fact that even mild infections are associated with autoantibody production underscores the potential for long-term health consequences of COVID-19,” says ,” added co-corresponding author Akiko Iwasaki, the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Immunobiology at Yale.

For the study, Ring’s lab worked with Iwasaki’s lab and members of the Yale IMPACT team — a group of scientists, scholars, and physicians developing research and clinical efforts to combat COVID-19 — to screen blood samples from 194 patients who had contracted the virus, with varying degrees of severity, for the presence of autoantibodies.

Specifically, they used a novel technology developed by Ring’s lab called Rapid Extracellular Antigen Profiling (REAP) to identify autoantibody interactions with nearly 3,000 human proteins. Ring said the findings may lead to strategies to treat or prevent the damaging effects of autoantibodies in COVID-19 patients.

In addition, the new REAP technology could be used to pinpoint important antibody responses for many other disease conditions beyond COVID-19. Ring’s lab has found a host of novel autoantibodies in patients with autoimmune disease and is now searching for autoantibodies in patients with cancer and neurological illnesses.

Source: Medindia

Stay connected with us on social media platform for instant update click here to join our  Twitter, & Facebook

We are now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@TechiUpdate) and stay updated with the latest Technology headlines.

For all the latest Health News Click Here 

 For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! NewsAzi is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.