glycolysis – BioQuakes

COVID-19 has a plethora of underlying effects. However, researchers may have just identified the most dangerous long-term impact.

While researchers have been studying COVID-19 for the past two years, pharmacy technician Nola Sullivan of Kellogg, Idaho, has uncovered the virus’s extending underlying conditions. Sullivan faced an additional struggle as a result of being infected with COVID-19 last year, despite the virus’s long-term effects, which included a loss of taste and smell, nausea, and diarrhea. Many COVID-19 patients too are grappling with an additional struggle: the onset of diabetes. In a research involving nearly 3,800 patients infected with the virus, cardiologist James Lo and colleagues discovered that just under half of the patients acquired elevated blood sugar levels that were not previously present. How is it conceivable for COVID-19 patients to develop diabetes? Many researchers have been tackling this exact issue for a long time.

When a patient develops diabetes, he or she must learn to control the illness and live an active life due to an insulin shortage. Because diabetes is incurable, the prospect that it is a long-term side effect of COVID-19 is very troubling. Insulin is essential in the human body because it lowers triglycerides by boosting lipoprotein lipase activity, which degrades triglycerides into glycerol and fatty acids. A lack of pancreatic B-cells, which release proper quantities of insulin, has a direct impact on mitochondria and the glycolysis process which is utilized for energy synthesis by all cells in the human body, eventually prompting the pyruvate product to join the Krebs cycle for ongoing energy production. Both processes are required for continual energy generation. Glucose is broken down into pyruvate and energy during glycolysis. The process can take place in the absence of oxygen, making it anaerobic. Insulin promotes glycolysis by raising the rate of glucose transport across the cell membrane and the rate of glycolysis by boosting the activities of hexokinase and 6-phosphofructokinase.

Nonetheless, people with COVID-19 have experienced sugar surges. The elevated blood sugar levels were new after infection for the majority of the patients, suggesting that many of them had not been diagnosed with diabetes prior to contracting the virus. According to Lo and other experts, the mechanism by which COVID-19 causes diabetes is currently being investigated. Patients with ARDS caused by COVID-19 and a high blood sugar level were in the hospital three times longer than those with normal blood sugar levels. While the exact cause of diabetes is unknown, researchers have discovered evidence that the coronavirus attacks pancreatic B-cells, which produce insulin. This does not yet address the question because patients who received COVID-19 continued to generate significant amounts of C-peptide, indicating that pancreatic cells were still generating insulin. Despite this, their blood sugar levels remained elevated, suggesting that something else was at fault. The virus-infected fat cells must be stimulating other cells in a detrimental way, resulting in diabetes. As a result, Lo and colleagues observed that individuals with COVID-19 had low amounts of adiponectin, a hormone generated by fat cells that helps other cells respond to insulin’s urge to take up sugar. COVID-19 can clearly infect fat cells. The virus may also cause replication in human fat, which provides another indication as to how fat is implicated in the virus and, as a result, diabetes. While obesity has a significant impact on the onset of diabetes as a result of the virus, this is not always the case. The miscommunication of fat cells is to blame.

How may fat cell miscommunication be controlled, and who is directly affected? This is the next question that has to be addressed in order to develop a deep understanding of the long term effects of the virus.

Cell Surface

The wonderful jumble of molecules that make up living things is so complex that biologists have overlooked an entire class of them, until now. This missing piece of biochemistry is neither rare nor difficult to find, it’s just that no one had thought of looking for it before. Researchers at Stanford University have discovered a new kind of biomolecule that could potentially play a significant role in the biology of all living things. This newfound biomolecule, consisting of RNA modified by sugars, could be present in all forms of life and might possibly contribute to autoimmune diseases.

Glycoprotein (CD4)

This newly discovered biomolecule is called glycoRNA. It is a small ribbon of ribonucleic acid with sugar molecules, called glycans, dangling from it. Up until this point in time, the only kinds of similarly sugar-decorated biomolecules known to science were lipids and proteins. These glycolipids and glycoproteins appear everywhere in and on animal, plant and microbial cells, contributing to a wide range of processes essential for life.

After documenting the presence of the newly discovered glycoRNA in human cells, Ryan Flynn (the study’s lead author) and colleagues searched for it in other cells. They found glycoRNAs in every cell type they tested which consisted of human, mouse, hamster, and zebrafish. The presence of glycoRNAs in different organisms suggests they perform fundamentally important functions. Furthermore, the RNAs are structurally similar in creatures that evolutionarily diverged hundreds of millions to billions of years ago. This suggests glycoRNAs could have ancient origins and may have had some role in the emergence of life on Earth, The function of glycoRNAs is not yet known, but it requires further research and study as they may be linked to autoimmune diseases that cause the body to attack its own tissues and cells. For example, the immune systems of people suffering from lupus are known to target several of the specific RNAs that can compose glycoRNAs.

This is exciting and interesting because it means that glycoRNAs can participate directly in cell-to-cell communication. Previously, it was believed that this was prohibited for RNAs that were not believed to play a role on the cell surface. While glycoRNAs functions are still a mystery, this discovery will hopefully lead to many more answers soon, possibly about some people’s troublesome immune systems.

BioQuakes

AP Biology class blog for discussing current research in Biology

Tag: glycolysis

How Diabetes Is Emerging In Patients With COVID-19

A New Type of Biochemical That Could Be Found In All Life on Earth.

Archives