Mini lungs may show why Covid-19 kills

The number of Coronavirus-infected people is constantly increasing. This article gives an insight into the impact of the infection:

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Now it is time to infect you with the Coronavirus. The lung sacs in your body that the transferred breathed oxygen into the blood. Lung Organoid to help you figure out where and how the corona viruses cause the most damage. Then, the cultured cells could also help when Testing Covid-19-drugs.

Covid-19-treatment: Standard laboratory cells do not help

The first indication of how the Virus enters the body, where it inflicts the most damage, have a Try of researchers from animal and human cell model and computer simulations. However, these preliminary tests are not able to ultimately reveal the exact effect of Sars-CoV-2. “If you are interested in the response of the host, are the replacement products will not be useful,” says NEIDL-micro-biologist Elke Mühlberger. The same applies for the cells and tissues where the viral effect is tested. Standard laboratory cells have not lost, after years of adjusting to life in the Petri dish “is their ability to act as a lung or liver, they also respond to Interferon [ein zu den Zytokinen gehörendes immunstimulierendes Gewebshormon, Anm. d. Red.]”says NEIDL-micro-biologist Elke Mühlberger.

Cells from organo-halides, which are bred from stem cells and to organize conglomerates can have the basic cellular composition and function of a real organ. The Boston NEIDL researchers will use this way produced in the lung tissue, similar to the alveolar sacs called air sacs in the lungs. The lung doctor Finn Hawkins is the leader of one of the Organoid laboratories and also deals with Covid-19-patients. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he says of his service in the ICU. “The degree of severe lung damage in some patients was exceptionally high. It is not like Ebola, where all are ill.”

Some of the most seriously ill and often artificially ventilated patients suffer from a “cytokine storm”, a runaway inflammatory response that is not accompanied with a fever, the drops just. But what are the most Covid-19-kill patients, that they can no longer breathe. “Market values are rising and you need oxygen. Thus, a sudden deterioration I have never seen before and now I see it constantly,” says Hawkins.

Organoid: “Incredibly good resolution”

The cultured airway and lung cells could help Hawkins, according to mainly answer two questions: What are the cells that let the Virus in the body and what are the keys for the devastating effects. It combines the stem cells produced lung cells with the ability to sequence molecules in individual cells and to keep track of, is the result of a “incredibly good resolution,” he says.

In doing so, he builds with his research partners on the results of the score, researchers at the University of North Carolina with cell culture experiments. To find out which airway are cells most susceptible, and whether the Virus affects directly to the lungs or the nose or throat mucous membrane is infected, the scientists added to the genome of Sars-CoV-2 viruses in the laboratory, the genes for glowing proteins. Infected into the skin and then cultures of various airway cells from the nasal mucosa to the lung, lit up then. By using the color materials of the upper to the lower respiratory tract, decreasing the degree of Infection.

One reason is the also of the nose to the lungs decreasing the frequency of receptors, such as ACE-2 and the other to the cells that the Virus uses to Dock and Penetration is good. The ciliated cells in the nose, especially ACE-2 receptors, which makes the nose to the most likely Intrusion on-site and according to the researchers, the Mask useful. “If you understand what cell types such as infected, you can find strategies to prevent or [die Wirkung] to mitigate,” says Hawkins.

Problems with the oxygen supply at Covid-19

Now cells from lung Organoid is to show how certain types of cells react to infection. The real Problem may lie in so-called type 2 lung cells, which produce the so-called Surfactant. This substance reduces the surface tension, so that the air sacs remain open. “If you look at the autopsies, are damaged, the type-2 cells is very strong,” says Hawkins. “You get completely closed alveoli, and this causes problems with the oxygen supply. When a Patient comes to the ventilation device, it is very difficult, the air pressure properly set, and to save these sick, leaky lungs.” Jessie Huang of Boston University has already established type 2 cells from the organoid, and researchers in the U.S. and around the world sent.

And what happens when you lung organoid-cells Covid-19 administered? NEIDL researcher Mühlberger, according to their nuclei look within a few days, fragmented, some loose and float away. “Don’t you see that the cells work so well,” she says. “We believe that the Virus kills the cells, but we don’t know for sure.” It could be the Overproduction of cytokines and Chemokines, two inflammatory molecule locations. She also hopes that Organoids will help to better determine which drugs prevent the Virus from copying itself. To help avoid that in monkey cells prove to be initially successful medium in human lung cells as ineffective.