UIn a new study carried out by a team of scientists from the Salk Institute in the United States and published Friday in the scientific journal. Circulatory Research, States that Covid-19, although initially considered a respiratory disease, is actually a vascular disease. Researchers believe this finding could help better understand disease complications, in order to create more effective treatments.

To reach this conclusion, the researchers looked at how the virus elevation protein contributed to damaging vascular endothelial cells. To do this, they created a virus similar to SARS-CoV-2, with a crown of spiny proteins, used in the cell-entry process.

After the tests on animals, it was found that this “pseudovirus” (as reported in the Galileo magazine), caused damage to the lungs and arteries, which proves that the high protein alone works to infect the organism with disease. Tissue samples are checked for inflammation in the lining cells of the pulmonary artery.

Then the scientists repeated the process in the lab. Again, the endothelial cells of the lung arteries come into contact with the spike protein. It turns out that another protein, ACE2, binds to the spike as a receptor. This link between the two proteins cuts off the molecular signal that angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 makes to the mitochondria, the organelles responsible for generating energy. How can the GalileoThe mitochondria in our cells get damaged, and the person gets sick.

“This could explain why some people have strokes and others have problems in other parts of the body,” says one of the study’s authors, Uri Manor, from the Salk Institute. “The similarity between the cases is that they all have vascular bases.”

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