More protected because in some way more prepared. Especially at the level of the nasal mucosa, there in one of the points of entry of the virus. This could be the reason – or rather one of the reasons – able to explain the low weight of Covid-19 in children. The mucous membrane of the nose of the little ones, in fact, has more receptors able to intercept the virus and activate the immune system, but also more immune cells per se, which would give children a greater antiviral capacity at the level of the airways. .
The conclusions are those that come from a study (albeit small as a sample analyzed, we speak in total of less than 100 participants) which compared the mucosa of children with that of some adults, with or without Covid (but only in relation to mild or moderate forms of the disease). The comparison in this case was at the cellular and molecular level: the hypothesis of the team of German researchers – who write about it on the pages of Nature Biotechnology – is that there could be something, as different cells and molecules, able to explain the different susceptibility to the disease between adults and children.
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And something probably exists. In detail – by analyzing the expression of genes in samples taken from swabs of abults and children – the researchers observed differences in the nasal mucosa of children that would predispose them to be more ready for viral infections. For example, while in healthy adults the amount of immune cells is generally reduced in the nasal mucosa – and instead increases following infection – different populations are found in that of the smallest ones, in particular a subpopulation of cytotoxic T lymphocytes. . Similarly, the authors write, the nasal mucosa seems more prepared to respond to infections thanks to the expression of genes of specific receptors for pathogens (the so-called pattern recognition receptors, PPR). Characteristics, the authors continue, are probably generic, and not related to an infection in particular.
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“This study confirms how the immunological condition of the child, different from that of the adult, can help him to overcome the attack of the virus – comments Rocco Russo, coordinator of the technical table for vaccinations of the Italian Society of Pediatrics (SIP) – both as a risk of colonization and as a disease “. Because, for example, the expert goes on, the little ones do not suffer from comorbidities and immunosuppressive conditions that can predispose to infections. “In children, as indicated by various scientific activities in the field, there seems to be a protection mechanism that prevents the virus, right there, in the airways, which are the gateway to the virus, to go further – continues Russo – The cells found here seem to be somehow pre-activated for the production of interferon to block replication of the virus. And we know, even from the data that have just arrived from an Italian and American study published in Cell, that a high response of some interferons in the upper airways is associated with less severe forms of the disease. “It would not instead be a lower predisposition to infection due to a reduced expression of the ACE2 receptor (which the virus uses to infect cells) in children, as assumed in the past.
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