COVID-19 might either start or speed up neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's
COVID-19 infection might either start or speed up neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
This paper is dense and deserves a break down.
Here you go:
There are increasing reports suggesting that a COVID-19 infection might either start or speed up neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
These diseases (and others) are caused by human proteins misfolding into a structure called an "amyloid fibril." Once these fibrils form, they can cause more proteins to misfold in a chain reaction.
SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein:
•The researchers previously found a potential mechanism where the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (which causes COVID-19) can turn into these problematic amyloid fibrils.
There are increasing reports suggesting that a COVID-19 infection might either start or speed up neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
•This happens when the spike protein is cleaved (or cut) by an enzyme called neutrophil elastase, which is abundant when the body is fighting a COVID-19 infection.
Main Findings:
•In their experiments, they found that these spike-protein-formed amyloid fibrils can speed up the formation of amyloid fibrils from the human prion protein (HuPrP), which is associated with CJD.
•They also tested other disease-associated amyloid fibrils to see if they had the same effect, but it seems the effect is specific to the spike-protein-formed fibrils.
•Additionally, they found that the formation of amyloid fibrils associated with Alzheimer's disease (A?1-42) was also sped up by these spike-protein-formed fibrils.
•They identified specific segments of the spike protein that were most efficient in causing this acceleration in different proteins.
Conclusions & Implications?
While these findings are based on in vitro experiments (meaning outside a living organism, like in a petri dish), they suggest that the spike protein's amyloid fibrils might play a role in the reported increase of CJD, AD, and potentially other neurodegenerative diseases after COVID-19.
I’ve seen some immediately claim that this means it causes Mad Cow disease.
Its important to keep in mind that while Mad Cow Disease and the potential effects of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein both involve misfolded proteins, they are related to different types of misfolded structures (prions for Mad Cow and amyloid fibrils for the potential COVID-19 connection). However, the authors suggest a possible link between the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and the acceleration of conditions like CJD, which is in the same family of diseases as the variant caused by Mad Cow.
Link to tweet
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I haven't had it yet, and this makes me more determined not to get it. So, just keep masking and stuff if you can.
= new reply since forum marked as read
