At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, people diagnosed with chronic lung conditions, such as asthma, were anxious about whether the disease would be severe due to preexisting conditions. However, as it turns out, some types of asthma have better chances against COVID, and researchers finally understand why.
Asthma Vs. COVID-19: Why Some Forms of Asthma are More Resilient Against COVID
So far, population-based studies in Europe, Australia, the UK, and the United States have found no substantial evidence that asthma drives serve COVID-190 symptoms. In fact, it is the opposite.
Generally, people with allergic asthma are less at risk of getting sick after catching COVID; this is in contrast to patients with other lung conditions such as emphysema, who are more likely to get severe COVID symptoms.
The question now is, what sets asthma apart? Researchers from the University of North Carolina think they've finally cracked the reason behind the disparity.
A study published in the journal PNAS, titled "SARS-CoV-2 infection of airway cells causes intense viral and cell shedding, two spreading mechanisms affected by IL-13," used cell cultures gathered from the human respiratory tract. Mimicking the airways of asthmatic patients, the team treated some of the samples using small proteins that are known to be prevalent in asthma, known as interleukin-13. The presence of the protein causes ramped-up mucus production way beyond healthy levels experienced by asthmatic people.
Afterward, the team infected the cultured cells with SARS-CoV-2. In the IL-13 treated samples, the coronavirus showed trouble invading the cells to replicate and spread copies of itself. Meanwhile, there were a substantial amount of infections in the untreated samples.
Camille Ehre, a biochemist from UNC and co-author of the study, explains that the team knew that there would be bio-mechanistic reasons why people diagnosed with allergic asthma were more protected from severe disease than their counterparts. She adds that the researchers discovered that a number of vital cellular changes, especially due to IL-13, led the team to conclude that the protein played a unique role in defense against the COVID virus in certain patient populations, reports ScienceAlert.
Even when mucus on samples was removed, the cells showed a degree of protection against the invasion of COVID.
Unraveling the Secret Defense of Allergic Asthma on COVID-19
On the other hand, IL-13 cannot be utilized as a treatment. This is because the protein is part of the immune response which means that it can trigger inflammation in the airways of patients.
However, understanding the key points of what's going on inside the lungs of asthmatic patience is crucial. By comparing cells that mimic human asthmatic airways to healthy airway cells, researchers have highlighted some of the underlying mechanisms at play behind severed COVID-19 cases.
In the future, other therapeutic drugs could help target specific sites that appear to be more involved in severe symptoms. Ehre adds that the team believes that further research shows how vital it is to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection as early as possible.
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