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'Spider-Man' Immune Response May Promote Severe COVID-19
Scientific American
By Esther Landhuis on April 28, 2020
Clinical trials have begun to test drugs that counter toxic molecular webs linked to lung distress
The menagerie of immune cells and proteins that defend the human body have received mounting scrutiny in struggles to ward off COVID-19. A lot of the debate has centered around whether, after recovery, a person carrying antibodies can safely return to the workplace. But attention has also turned to runaway immune reactions provoked by the infection that can lead to respiratory failure.
One relatively obscure accomplice when the defense system goes awry is a “Cinderella” immune cell called a neutrophil. Understudied and overshadowed by virus-fighting T cells and antibody-producing B cells, neutrophils make up more than half of our white blood cells and are often the first to arrive at the scene of infection. They attack invaders in several ways—usually by gobbling the intruders up or rallying other immune cells to the fight. But occasionally, perhaps in a last-ditch defensive effort, neutrophils pull a Spider-Man maneuver: they shoot out sticky webs of DNA and toxic proteins that ensnare pathogens and prevent them from spreading. Because a neutrophil dies when it engages in this process —or shortly thereafter—some researchers consider the webs a cellular version of suicide bombing.
In a study published on April 24 in JCI Insight, scientists report finding these mysterious structures, called neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), in serum samples from people hospitalized for COVID-19. And several groups have started recruiting patients with the disease for clinical trials of existing drugs that disrupt NETs or block their formation.
The web structures first caught scientists’ attention in 2004, when a paper in Science reported on NETs in bacterial conditions such as dysentery and appendicitis. But Andrew Weber, a pulmonary and critical care physician in the Northwell Health system in New York State knew nothing about them until, he heard a local scientist give a presentation about her research last fall: Mikala Egeblad spoke about how NETs can promote the spread of cancer—a focus of her lab’s studies at New York’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. And she raised the possibility that they could also play a role in vaping-associated lung injury. Pre-COVID-19, Weber says, “that was the biggest epidemic that we needed to worry about.”
One relatively obscure accomplice when the defense system goes awry is a “Cinderella” immune cell called a neutrophil. Understudied and overshadowed by virus-fighting T cells and antibody-producing B cells, neutrophils make up more than half of our white blood cells and are often the first to arrive at the scene of infection. They attack invaders in several ways—usually by gobbling the intruders up or rallying other immune cells to the fight. But occasionally, perhaps in a last-ditch defensive effort, neutrophils pull a Spider-Man maneuver: they shoot out sticky webs of DNA and toxic proteins that ensnare pathogens and prevent them from spreading. Because a neutrophil dies when it engages in this process —or shortly thereafter—some researchers consider the webs a cellular version of suicide bombing.
In a study published on April 24 in JCI Insight, scientists report finding these mysterious structures, called neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), in serum samples from people hospitalized for COVID-19. And several groups have started recruiting patients with the disease for clinical trials of existing drugs that disrupt NETs or block their formation.
The web structures first caught scientists’ attention in 2004, when a paper in Science reported on NETs in bacterial conditions such as dysentery and appendicitis. But Andrew Weber, a pulmonary and critical care physician in the Northwell Health system in New York State knew nothing about them until, he heard a local scientist give a presentation about her research last fall: Mikala Egeblad spoke about how NETs can promote the spread of cancer—a focus of her lab’s studies at New York’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. And she raised the possibility that they could also play a role in vaping-associated lung injury. Pre-COVID-19, Weber says, “that was the biggest epidemic that we needed to worry about.”
Read more here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spider-man-immune-response-may-promote-severe-covid-19/
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