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What kind of consequential damage can a coronavirus infection cause? How damaged are our lungs? Although the coronavirus “Sars-CoV-2” is currently attracting the attention of global research, it is not yet clearly understood how exactly “Covid-19” attacks the cells of our lungs.
Scientists from the “University of Cambridge” have now for the first time been able to observe what happens at the cellular level during a “Sars-CoV-2” infection.
Corona infection: what kind of consequential damage does the virus cause?
The coronavirus “Sars-CoV-2” not only fills the lungs and airways, but also the tissue of other organs such as the heart, intestines, brain or nervous system. For most of these organs, medical professionals have already found a way to successfully examine a corona infection in the laboratory.
For the alveoli that are particularly affected by “Covid-19”, among all things, there has been a lack of information to track exactly how an infection is evacuated. “We still know surprisingly little about how ‘Sars-CoV-2’ fills your lungs and makes you sick,” explains Joo-Hyeon Lee, a PhD student at the Institute for Stem Cell Research in Cambridge.
Researchers from the “University of Cambridge” have now succeeded in examining the course of the disease and the effects of “Sars-CoV-2” on the lungs. To do this, scientists developed so-called organoids, a miniature image of an organ grown from stem cells, in this case a lung.
The researchers grew lung organoids from stem cells from healthy donors and then infected them with “Sars-CoV-2”. The scientists published their observations and results in the stem cell research journal Cell stem cells.
Protective Mechanism: Corona drives cells to suicide
Contact with a single viral particle is enough to infect a lung cell, according to the researchers. According to the study, 61% of the organ’s lung cells were infected with corona just one day after initial contact with “Covid-19”. The body immediately started making interferons, an immune messenger that puts cells on alert.
But although the cells changed after a few hours and turned into small “virus factories”, the virus’s defense mechanism didn’t start until after 48 hours: by the third day after infection, the cells had maximized the production of antiviral molecules, according to the researchers.
In most cases, however, the body’s cellular defense is not sufficient to defeat “Sars-CoV-2”. This means that the messenger substances of apoptosis are produced about 60 hours after infection, the scientists report.
The research interprets apoptosis as a kind of suicidal command for cells: “A cell goes into apoptosis when the signals it needs for its survival are deprived of it, or when other signals order suicide. […] This prevents genome defects from being passed on to daughter cells “, says the” Federal Ministry of Education and Research “.
Coronavirus Study: Organoids provide a good representation of reality
According to the scientists, the study provides valuable information on the course and stages of a “Covid-19” disease: from the viral acquisition of the cellular mechanism and from the first warning signs to the mobilization of the cell’s resistance to the failure of defense measures and cell death.
It can be assumed that the infection in the human body is very similar. Since severe lung damage usually occurs with Corona only about ten days after infection, it can be assumed that the cellular reaction to “SARS-CoV-2” in humans occurs with a delay compared to the organoid.
According to the study, this could be because coronavirus takes a few days to travel from the upper airways to the lungs.
As a radiologist, Christopher Herzog has already dealt with numerous people who have contracted the coronavirus. In the interview he explains what is happening in the lungs and why a “CT” can be important.
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