Corona ‘autoantibodies’ Behind ‘long-covid’ Symptoms Says Researchers At Emory University
According to researchers at Emory University, COVID survivors develop ‘autoantibodies’ in a failed attempt to combat coronavirus originally which targets healthier cells instead. Spurring a phenomenon similar to that observed in non-infectious autoimmune diseases, making ‘long-covid’ potentially incurable.
Long-covid stands on the immune crash supported by the very constituents of the immune system machinery called autoantibodies.
Scientists have now found ways to test for these autoantibodies. Thus identifying and suggesting possible treatment methods for the ever increasing numbers of recovered patients dealing with the moody flare of long-covid.
Lingering symptoms such as skin rashes, diarrhea, draining fatigue have no bias when choosing their humans. Be it a child, a weak elderly, a pregnant woman or a teenager.
While some recover and gain good health in a week or so, others struggle for months.
A few scientists previously attempted to explain this variation using genetics as a potential medical pivot. Yet the researchers at Emory team focused on immune overreaction.
As there was a potential relation between immune overreaction observed during the course of illness with COVID-19, the pattern visible through the ‘flare ups’ period and other non-infectious disease
They had also taken into notice that some of the immune proteins and cells in patients’ blood suggested poorly directed antibody attacks.
Thus the Emory team experimented with blood tests of 52 discharged coronavirus patients who have been severely ill.
The conclusions suggested that 44 percent of the test group had autoantibodies reacting to human DNA. The other 70 percent of the half of the group nested self-destructive immune cells. Many patients were also found having antibodies digesting a protein playing a pivotal role in healthy blood clotting, also known as rheumatoid factor.
The research thus emphasises on autoantibodies as the key factor for the diagnosis and treatment of long-covid.
Autoantibodies-
‘Autoantibodies’ are described as antibodies that the human immune system makes to fight itself.
Antibodies are immune proteins manufactured by B-cells. They are specifically designed as soon as the body identifies any new bacterium or virus, such SARS-CoV-2.
The B-cells derive packets of genetic coding from the pathogens in order to invent customised weaponry against the pathogens.
Yet this machinery can malfunction sometimes taking parts of human genetic code as the target, and builds a weapon to seek and destroy these.
‘Anytime you have that combination of inflammation and cell death, there is the potential for autoimmune disease and autoantibodies to emerge,’ said Dr Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Thus the autoantibodies affect the patients in ways similar to those observed in auto immune responses in diseases such as hepatitis and rheumatoid arthritis.
What remains to be tested is, if the autoantibodies dissipate over time or are capable of lingering for years, a driving factor in case of chronic disease as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. Where if second case is found to be true, there could be potentially no relief from long-covid symptoms.
‘You never really cure lupus – [patients] have flares, and they get better and they have flares again,’ Dr. Ann Marshak-Rothstein and Immunologist at the University of Massachusetts, Worcester.