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Virginia: Long-term effects Respiratory viral infections Pandemics like COVID-19 are a huge public health burden. Some estimates suggest that more than 65 million people worldwide suffer from long-haul COVID-19.
However, efforts to better understand the condition have been hampered because it can affect multiple organ systems, such as the lungs, brain, and heart. This is further complicated by the lack of animal models that can adequately mimic the disease.
Animal models, such as mice and rats, are an important tool that researchers use to study human diseases and cancer. Developing a treatment strategy. Although there are major differences between humans and animal models, the vast majority of our immune and organ systems function similarly. Such similarities in physiology have made important health care discoveries related to COVID-19 possible.
I’m an immunology researcher in the Sun Lab at the University of Virginia. We study the role of the immune system in respiratory viral infections such as influenza and COVID-19. In our newly published research, we developed a new mouse model to study long-term COVID-19 and found that blocking certain overactive immune cells Can restore lung function.
New models, new goals
Our team wanted to better understand the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the respiratory system. To do this, we worked to identify key characteristics associated with lung scarring after COVID-19.
First, we examined lung samples from patients with long-haul COVID-19. Although these patients had been infected many months or years before the samples were taken, we found evidence that these patients may have been infected. overactive immune system in their lungs, particularly in areas that failed to fully heal themselves after infection.
Next, we aimed to create a mouse model for long-term COVID-19 by comparing the pathology of mice infected with four different types of respiratory viral infections. Surprisingly, we found that mice infected with influensa viruses best replicated the physiological characteristics of severely infected mice, rather than the COVID-19 mouse models currently used by scientists. Chronic lung diseaseThe reasons why infections with different respiratory viruses affect the lungs differently are not clear. But preliminary evidence suggests it may be because each virus targets different cell types “in humans and mice.”
Additionally, since COVID-19 is all about damage that occurs after infection, it seems less important which virus causes the problem in our animal model, but rather whether the damage is similar to what we want to address in human patients.
Using our new mouse model, we were able to identify the presence of an abnormal group of cells in the lungs of mice – made up of the same dysfunctional immune and epithelial, or structural, cells seen in the lungs of long-haul COVID-19 patients. Additionally, we found that the uncontrolled activity of these immune cells in the lungs prevented structural cells from repairing themselves. It also prevented them from restoring gas exchange, the process of taking in oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide.
Importantly, when we blocked the activity of a protein associated with this overactive immune response, it reduced lung lesions and restored optimal lung function in mice.
Treatment of respiratory viral infections
Most approaches to dealing with long-term COVID-19 rely on starting treatment soon after infection. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to identify strategies for treating infection. Respiratory symptoms COVID-19 can have long-term effects once this chronic illness develops.
The drugs tested in our study have already been approved. Food and Drug Administration to treat severe COVID-19 and other inflammatory conditions. We hope our findings may spur further research into using these drugs to treat long-term COVID-19.
Our work may also have applications beyond long COVID-19. Growing evidence suggests that many respiratory viral infections, such as influenza, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus, can cause chronic lung disease. Considering the four pandemics and more respiratory viral epidemics that have occurred in the past 100 years, studying the cellular and molecular similarities between respiratory viral infections may be important for how clinicians respond to viral outbreaks in the future.
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