Auto-aggressive antibodies or autoantibodies are the main cause of severe cases of COVID-19, in which the activity of the immune system is violated. This conclusion of the scientists of Yale University is proved in an article published in the Nature magazine. Defective proteins that normally must cope with the virus, begin to attack fabrics and human organs, while their number is directly related to the severity of symptoms.
In the course of the study, scientists used a high-performance autoantibhelter detection method called REAP (Rapid Extracellular Antigen Profling). It is aimed at identifying through sequencing (deciphering an amino acid sequence) of antibodies that are aimed at exoprota – a set of extracellular and secreted proteins. Blood samples of 194 medical workers and patients infected with Coronavirus SARS-COV-2 were analyzed, for the presence of autoantibulus to 2770 proteins of exoprotea.
In patients with COVID-19, there was a sharp increase in the reactivity of the autoantibol compared to uninfected people. Most often, autoantibodies were directed against immunomodulatory proteins, including cytokines, chemokines, complement system and receptors on cell surface. As a result, the immune system ceases to effectively cope with coronavirus, which leads to complications. Experiments on transgenic mice with human protein ACE2 (serves as a gate for infection with a cell virus) showed that animals with auto-beams often died when Sars-COV-2 infect.
autoantibodies remain in the human body after recovery, which explains the long post-shaped syndrome. Even the light cases of infection are able to provoke an autoantile production, which can turn into long-term health problems.