In a breakthrough discovery that would impact the way pharmaceutical companies develop drugs to combat COVID, Israeli scientists have identified the proteins in coronavirus that are triggering heart attacks and strokes among patients. Researchers from Israel took a "peek in the virus's black box," to analyze over two dozen proteins to establish which ones of them are causing major blood vessel damage.
Dr. Ben Maoz of Tel Aviv University told The Times of Israel that his team of scientists analyzed all 29 proteins inside the coronavirus to figure out which ones were triggering damage to the vascular system. He explained, "Coronavirus isn't the purely respiratory disease we first thought, and we have identified the proteins that put patients at increased risk of stroke, heart attack, and other problems associated with the vascular system."
In the peer-reviewed journal eLife, Dr. Maoz identified five proteins in SARS-CoV-2 that sparked vascular problems in patients. He remarked, "This work could well help scientists to develop drugs to counter the effect of the coronavirus on the vascular system, by providing an understanding of exactly which proteins, or pieces of the virus, are causing problems."
Dr. Maoz's team conducted the research at his lab, which specializes in biomedical engineering and neuroscience and teamed up with Professor Uri Ashery and other Tel Aviv University researchers to build a simulation of the human vascular system from which scientists observed the effect of COVID's 29 proteins. Their analysis enabled them to identify which proteins affected the vascular system and how.
Dr. Maoz explained that their research enabled them to witness which proteins impacted the vascular system and how it makes the "vasculature more leaky," and how the "tubes become more porous and cannot hold liquid." He called this information vital in developing further treatments for COVID.
According to CBN News, Dr. Maoz cited the "very high incidence of vascular disease and blood clotting" among COVID patients, which led them to the "evidence" that showed how "the virus severely damages the blood vessels or the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels."
Meanwhile, the data appears to support the correlation between COVID proteins that affect the vascular system and the odds of a COVID patient surviving a heart attack. According to Reuters, recent studies on COVID showed that "heart attack patients with COVID have a lower survival rate." A report published on Friday in JAMA recounted how researchers reviewed data from over 80,000 people who had heart attacks in the U.S. in 2019 or 2020.
About 76,000 who suffered from heart attacks at home or at work. From this group, 15.2% of those with COVID later died in the hospital, compared to 11.2% who did not have COVID. Moreover, among the 4,000 patients who were already in the hospital when the heart attack occurred, up to 78.5% of those who died had COVID, compared to 46.1% who died but did not have COVID. This led researchers to believe that heart attack patients who had COVID were likely to go into cardiac arrest.
