In a new study from Cedars-Sinai, researchers found a potential new therapy for COVID-19: a biologic substance created by reengineered human skin cells.
They found the substance stopped SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from reproducing itself, and also protected infected cells when tested in human lung cells.
Although still in the early stages, the findings open the possibility of having a new therapy for COVID-19 patients.
Few treatments currently exist for COVID-19 and the ones that do primarily focus solely on preventing the virus from replicating.
This new potential treatment inhibits replication but also protects or repairs tissue, which is important because COVID-19 can cause symptoms that affect patients long after the viral infection has been cleared.
The potential therapy investigated was created by scientists using skin cells called dermal fibroblasts.
They engineered the cells to produce therapeutic extracellular vesicles (EVs), which are nanoparticles that serve as a communication system between cells and tissue.
Engineering these fibroblasts allowed them to secrete EVs—which the investigators dubbed “ASTEX”—with the ability to repair tissue.
In previous experiments, the team found that ASTEX can repair heart tissue, lung tissue and muscle damage.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, they turned to study whether ASTEX could be used as treatment against SARS-CoV-2.
The team tested ASTEX by applying it to human lung epithelial cells, cells that line the pulmonary tract and are the targets of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
They discovered that ASTEX prevented cells from launching an inflammatory process that could lead to cell death. Cells treated with ASTEX also made fewer of a type of protein called ACE that SARS-CoV-2 may use to infect cells.
The team then compared the potential treatment with remdesivir, a drug currently used to treat COVID-19, and found that remdesivir did not inhibit production of ACE.
Instead, remdesivir stops the virus from latching on to a protein called ACE2. ASTEX, therefore, may present another way to prevent the virus from entering cells.
The team says this potential anti-COVID-19 biological therapy is novel in that it has two facets: It protects infected cells, which remdesivir does not do, and also inhibits viral replication.
If you care about COVID, please read studies about new risk factor for severe COVID-19, and new antibody treatment for COVID-19.
For more information about COVID, please see recent studies about vitamin D that can be an inexpensive COVID-19 treatment, and results showing that people can lose 80% of their COVID-19 immunity 6 months after Pfizer shot.
The study is published in the journal Biomaterials and Biosystems and was conducted by Ahmed G. Ibrahim et al.
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