Researchers in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles found that the variant, originated in California, was present in more than half of samples tested last week by researchers in Los Angeles. In late December, scientists in California began searching coronavirus samples for a fast-spreading new variant that had just been identified in Britain. They found it, though in
The increased prevalence of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors in people hospitalized with severe COVID-19 illness has engendered considerable interest in the metabolic aspects of SARS-CoV-2-induced pathophysiology. In this paper published in Cell Metabolism are updated concepts informing how metabolic disorders and their comorbidities modify the susceptibility to, natural history and potential treatment of
Virus-specific humoral and cellular immunity act synergistically to protect the host from viral infection. In this paper published on Cell Reports are interrogated the dynamic changes of virological and immunological parameters in 12 patients with symptomatic acute SARS-CoV-2 infection from disease onset to convalescence or death. SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in the respiratory tract in parallel
Evidence is growing that self-attacking ‘autoantibodies’ could be the key to understanding some of the worst cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection. More than a year after COVID-19 emerged, many mysteries persist about the disease: why do some people get so much sicker than others? Why does lung damage sometimes continue to worsen well after the body
A new study found that antibodies in patients vaccinated against COVID-19 were able to neutralize a version of the new variant. Researchers tested 10 mutations of the B117 variant, which was first identified in the UK. The COVID-19 vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer is likely to protect against the highly infectious variant of the virus, originally found
No definitive treatment for COVID-19 exists although promising results have been reported with remdesivir and glucocorticoids. Short of a truly effective preventive or curative vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, it is becoming increasingly clear that multiple pathophysiologic processes seen with COVID-19 as well as SARS-CoV-2 itself should be targeted. Because alpha-1-antitrypsin (AAT) embraces a panoply of biologic
SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2, a novel lineage of the coronavirus causing COVID-19, contains multiple mutations within two immunodominant domains of the spike protein. In a paper recently published on https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.18.427166v1.full.pdf it’s shown that this lineage exhibits complete escape from three classes of therapeutically relevant monoclonal antibodies. Furthermore 501Y.V2 shows substantial or complete escape from neutralizing antibodies in
At the heart of each coronavirus is its genome, a twisted strand of nearly 30,000 “letters” of RNA. These genetic instructions force infected human cells to assemble up to 29 kinds of proteins that help the coronavirus multiply and spread. As viruses replicate, small copying errors known as mutations naturally arise in their genomes. A lineage of coronaviruses will
What do we know about the new variant emerging from Brazil? This variant, known as P.1 or VOC202101/02 in the UK, was first detected in travellers from Brazil who arrived in Japan in January 2021. It involves 17 unique amino acid changes, three deletions, four synonymous mutations, and one 4nt insertion. It has several mutations
Research conducted by the University of Bari in collaboration with the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome The studies carried out by the research team of the University of Bari in collaboration with the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, formed by Luigi Leonardo Palese, Anna Maria Sardanelli, and Camilla Isgrò of the Department of Basic Medical
