The Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (President Kim Jang-seong) announced on the 12th that the research team led by Dr. Hong Jung-joo of the National Primate Center has identified for the first time a local immune response in the lung microstructure caused by a coronavirus mutant strain.
This is expected to be used as basic data necessary for research on the immune mechanism of new and variant infectious diseases in the future.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus, the cause of Corona 19, has appeared since its first appearance in 2019, and several mutants such as alpha, beta, delta, and omicron have appeared, but studies on changes in the immune response have been insufficient.
In particular, since the coronavirus is not uniformly distributed in the lungs, it is more difficult to confirm changes in the immune response unless the site of infection is directly identified.
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Using a primate infection model, the research team directly observed the response of the coronavirus delta and omicron mutants in three parts of the lung: alveoli, bronchioles, and blood vessels.
As a result, genes involved in inflammation, cytokines, complement, cell damage, cell proliferation, and cell differentiation pathways increased in both the lungs infected with Delta and Omicron mutants, and most of the genes in the viral host response pathway were common in all microtissue structures. It was found that the expression of
However, in the case of delta mutant infection, it was confirmed through spatial transcriptome analysis that some genes related to immune response or cell damage in the bronchioles were more highly expressed than in Omicron mutant infection.
In addition, as a result of analyzing the microstructural cell composition of the three regions, it was found that immune-related cells such as macrophages, dendritic cells, B cells, T cells, and NK cells were infiltrated in both the delta and omicron mutant-infected lungs.
This means that the difference in immune response is not large even with continued mutation. This means that a treatment strategy that suppresses existing immunity may be effective against new mutations in the future.
Dr. Hong Jung-joo said, “We expect that the follow-up research will contribute to the development of infection diagnosis and treatment strategies for mutant strains or new strains of infectious diseases that will appear in the future, and that it will be used as preclinical data from approved agencies such as the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.”
Meanwhile, the research team was the fourth in the world to succeed in producing a COVID-19 primate infection model, and supported preclinical testing of materials for developing a COVID-19 vaccine and treatment. It contributed to securing the sovereignty of vaccines and treatments in Korea by conducting efficacy evaluations of 13 vaccine and treatment candidate materials.
Reporter Youngjun Kim [email protected]
2023-07-12 03:00:00
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