ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
ORIGINAL: Jace11
ORIGINAL: Zorch
Science News has an article about 'Why some heart patients may be especially vulnerable to COVID-19'
People with hypertension and cardiovascular disease risk severe bouts of the disease
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cor ... vulnerable
Yup... ACE2 may be the key. It is also crucial in mitigating lung damage. ACE2 knock-out mice become very leaky after lung tissue damage, this is expected, as the angiotensin system is out of balance. Mice challenged with the the old SARS looked like there was no ACE2 in the lungs. ACE2 is an important factor in protecting the lung from damage, but this virus is targeting those pneumocytes that express it (probably exclusively - as this is the target of the S-protein).
It's a double whammy attack! A lung infection that also takes out the lungs ability to mitigate the damage. It's also X-linked, and there is a 2:1 gender bias is severe cases and deaths, but this could also be explained by other factors (men drink, smoke, and are more prone to high BP, cardiovascular dz). Type I and II Diabetes have upregulated ACE2 too (often prescribed ACE blockers and ARBs) - that is another reported comorbidity.
Recombinant soluble ACE2 is close to clinical trials in China.
The hypertension bias in the latest Italian data ... 76%
https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronaviru ... rzo-v2.pdf
I had already mentioned ACE2 and possibly using free ACE2 to bind with the virus so it will not be able to infect cells. But the ACE channel blockers are a different ACE.
Yup, that's right they have different activities (I think 40% homology though - both are membrane-bound carboxypeptidases acting on the same peptide), but ACE blockers have been shown to alter ACE2 expression levels in both animals and humans in various tissues.
Here is a short balanced article looking at the dangers of upregulation of ACE2 by ACE blockers and ARBs vs the possible benefits of ARBs as therapeutics, soluble ACE2 gets mentioned again.
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/adva ... 35/5810479
; Julia Child
