COVID-19 virus can trigger persistent, self-damaging immune response

A Cedars-Sinai, California, research team has found infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 can stress the immune system so much to cause the production of autoantibodies that will attack the body’s own organs and tissues. The shocking discovery was noticed even among those who reported mild symptoms or no symptoms of COVID-19 at all.

Elevated levels of autoantibodies were seen for as long as six months in a study group of 177 people – these people were confirmed to have had a previous infection with SARS-CoV-2. Of the variety of antibodies present, some have been found in people with diseases in which the immune system attacks its own healthy cells, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Some of the autoantibodies have also been linked to autoimmune diseases that typically affect women more often than men. In this study, however, men had a higher number of elevated autoantibodies than women.

“These findings help to explain what makes COVID-19 an especially unique disease,” said research scientist Justyna Fert-Bober, the Department of Cardiology at the Smidt Heart Institute, Cedars-Sinai. “These patterns of immune dysregulation could be underlying the different types of persistent symptoms we see in people who go on to develop the condition now referred to as long COVID-19.”

The research team is currently looking into the types of autoantibodies that may be present and persist in people with long-haul COVID-19 symptoms. The researchers will also examine whether autoantibodies are similarly generated in people with breakthrough infections.

According to Dr. Susan Cheng, Director of the Institute for Research on Healthy Aging in the Department of Cardiology at the Smidt Heart Institute, a better understanding of these antibody responses could be “one step closer to identifying ways to treat and even prevent these effects from developing in people at risk [of persistent COVID-19 symptoms].”

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Tags: COVID-19, virus

Category: Features, Health alert