The cause of one of the
most severe complications of
SarsCoV2
virus infection
in
children
, the Multisystem
Inflammatory Syndrome
, is
genetic
.
Thanks to this Italian discovery, it becomes possible to recognize the disease in time thanks to early diagnosis and personalized therapies.
The discovery is due to the Ceinge of Naples in collaboration with the Santobono-Pausilipon pediatric hospital and is published in two articles in the journals Frontiers in Immunology and in Metabolites.
MIS-C) affects children and adolescents two to six weeks after acute SarsCoV2 infection, is characterized by high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms and can involve the heart, kidneys and lungs.
Its genetic basis, described in the journal Frontiers in Immunology, is based on research conducted on 45 patients admitted to the Santobono.
"Thanks to the use of the latest generation equipment present at Ceinge, we have come to results that clearly show how MIS-C is associated with mutations in genes already implicated in auto-immune and auto-inflammatory diseases", observes Giuseppe Castaldo, coordinator of the Ceinge research group and professor of Technical Sciences of Laboratory Medicine at the Federico II University of Naples.
Triggering the syndrome is the fact that during the acute phase of SarsCoV2 infection, “complete elimination of the virus does not occur in children with the described genetic traits.
This - says Castaldo - causes tissue damage and triggers the hyper-reactive immune response typical of the syndrome ”.
Research,
The second study, published in the journal Metabolites indicates that identifying the mutations responsible for the multisystem syndrome in a timely manner is essential to address it with personalized therapies.
These are three proteins involved in the damage of the tissue that lines blood vessels (endothelium) and which can therefore cause venous or arterial thrombosis.
They are MCP-1 chemokine, VEGF-A factor and Panca antibodies.
“The dosage of these proteins - says Castaldo - would allow not only to diagnose MIS-C, but to identify a potential development of vasculitis.
And, very importantly, the early identification of patients with endothelial damage allows the establishment of specific personalized therapies, such as prophylaxis with anticoagulants, immunomodulators and / or anti-angiogenic drugs ".