The coronavirus is mainly caused by droplet infection.
A new study now shows how the virus gets into the body.
A mouth and nose cover * bears her name for a good reason.
Coronaviruses enter the body via the airways and can cause severe pneumonia there.
Researchers have now found out through which entry port the viruses prefer to enter the body.
For their findings, Yixuan Hou and his research team from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill prepared coronaviruses.
With the help of genetic engineering, the scientists constructed a green fluorescent variant of the virus by implanting a green shimmering protein in the genome.
In experiments, the researchers were able to better understand which route the virus prefers to take into the body
.
Cilia and ACE2 receptors: These cells make it easier for the coronavirus to penetrate
It has been observed that Sars-CoV-2 usually hits the nasal mucosa first and thus gets into the airways.
The result is hardly surprising: you primarily breathe in the ambient air through your nose and not through your mouth.
But there is also a scientific explanation:
According to the study
authors
, viruses should prefer certain
ciliate-bearing
cells in the nasal mucosa
, as these have a relatively large number of ACE2 receptors.
The viruses enter the cells * via these receptors, where they can multiply and spread.
Since there are a particularly large number of receptors in the nasal mucosa
, the virus can dock particularly well here - even better than in the throat, bronchi and alveoli
.
Hou and his team concluded this by observing the fluorescent coronaviruses.
Previous studies have also shown that the cilia cells equipped with cilia offer the virus a particularly large number of gateways when they have a high concentration of ACE2 receptors, as reported by the daily mirror.
According to Bernd Salzberger, Director of Infectiology at the Regensburg University Hospital, an infection with coronaviruses via the nasal mucosa should be more plausible than a direct infection of the bronchial mucosa.
"From this, however, it cannot and cannot be concluded
that a direct infection of the lungs does not also occur,
" said Salzberger.
Read more
about the
study
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jg
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*
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.
