MONDAY, Could 9, 2022 (HealthDay Information)
For those who get contaminated with COVID-19, there could also be a sliver of a silver lining: COVID could assist defend you in opposition to the frequent chilly, researchers say.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 belongs to a massive and various household of coronaviruses that embrace frequent chilly viruses.
As a result of viruses on this household have comparatively related spike proteins, immune system antibodies in opposition to one coronavirus spike protein might probably additionally acknowledge related spike proteins in different coronaviruses. This implies that earlier publicity to SARS-CoV-2 might assist defend in opposition to different coronaviruses, together with people who trigger colds, in response to scientists at the Scripps Analysis Institute in La Jolla, Calif.
To search out out if that is true, they took blood samples from 11 individuals to search for serum antibodies — proteins that assist combat off an infection. Eight of the samples had been collected earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic whereas three had been from individuals who just lately had COVID.
“The top purpose of this is able to be to rationally design vaccines that may acknowledge many various coronaviruses,” stated examine co-author Sandhya Bangaru, a postdoctoral analysis affiliate.
The researchers examined how the samples reacted to remoted spike proteins from completely different coronaviruses: OC43 and HKU1, each related to frequent colds; SARS-CoV-2; SARS-CoV-1, which causes extreme acute respiratory syndrome (SARS); and MERS-CoV, which causes Center East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
Solely serum antibodies from COVID-19 sufferers reacted to the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins, they usually additionally reacted extra strongly than pre-pandemic samples of antibodies to the spike proteins of the frequent chilly viruses and the different coronaviruses, in response to the examine. The outcomes had been revealed on-line in the journal Science Advances.
“Most individuals have this baseline immunity to frequent coronaviruses, and publicity to SARS-CoV-2 will increase the ranges of those antibodies,” Bangaru stated in an institute information launch.
Research co-author Andrew Ward, a professor of integrative structural and computational biology, stated this examine might assist result in higher vaccines.
“Getting a higher understanding of how immunity in opposition to this broad household of coronaviruses modifications with COVID-19 an infection is a vital step towards growing higher coronavirus vaccines, each for COVID-19 and for future, associated pathogens,” Ward stated in the launch.
Extra info
The U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention has extra on frequent human coronaviruses.
SOURCE: Scripps Analysis Institute, information launch, Could 4, 2022
By Robert Preidt HealthDay Reporter
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