Covid impacted everyone’s life during the pandemic and become something we might come into contact on a semi regular basis, so it is crucial to understand the long-term effects of SARS-CoV-2. A recent study by Erdem et al. has shed light on some of the longer term effects, explaining how the virus’s spike protein persists in the brain even after viral load dissipation. This blog post dives deep into these findings, and also finds connections with our curriculum.
The research by Erdem et al. (2024) details how the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein does not simply vanish after the virus is cleared from the body but instead lingers in the skull-meninges-brain axis. Also, in the cerebral spinal fluid, there were elevated levels of neurodegeneration. There were even dysregulated inflammatory pathways and neurodegeneration-associated changes in the brain. All of these symptoms are “long” after covid has exited the system. Giving a possible cause of all the chronic neurological symptoms seen in long-COVID patients. Interestingly, the study found in mouse samples that the injection of just the spike proteins was enough to cause neuroinflammation and modified behavior. Vaccination does, luckily, reduce the lingering spike proteins. However, it does not completely destroy them.
Erdem et al. (2024) December 11, 2024
Further investigation showed by Takahashi et al. (2024) that there is a strong correlation between the duration of spike protein presence with the severity of neurological symptoms. Fontes-Dantas et al. (2023) showed that viral presence was not necessary at all for the presence of neurological symptoms, and there is, in fact, a specific genotype: GG TLR4-2604G>A (rs10759931), which has been associated with bad neurological outcomes after covid spike exposure.
This topic connects to AP Bio in a few ways. The first is how the spike protein’s interaction with ACE2 receptors on cell surfaces is a real-life example of receptor-mediated endocytosis. The second obviously is the immune response, in which the spike protein’s persistence challenges the immune system’s ability to regulate inflammation, which we explored when discussing the roles of different immune cells, particularly how macrophages can become activated, leading to both protective and sometimes harmful effects. Finally, the stability and functionality of the spike protein expose the critical nature of protein folding and its impact on function.
Understanding the effects of SARS-CoV-2 and specificly the role of the spike protein in neurological damage, allows for both future research and treatment. As we learn more, studies like these highlight the importance of vaccination and early interventions, because we truly didn’t know the full affect of covid. Long covid was just a rumor for years, during the pandemic. By unraveling the mechanisms behind these symptoms one by one, we, as a society, move closer hopefully curing long-COVID for millions of affected peoples worldwide.
I choose to write about this topic because my dad has been effected by long covid, and im interested in what caused it and could be done to fix it. To me the idea that just a viral protein could independently cause damage is both fascinating and alarming.
What do you think about the long-term effects of COVID-19 and how science can help address them? Do you see ways we can better prepare for similar challenges in the future?
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