Viruses, bacteria. The human body has its own primary defense weapons to fight against pathogens that try to attack it. AND’ innate immunity and it is the first line, the one that solves 90% of the problems and that precedes and accompanies adaptive immunity, the most specific line of defense, of antibodies and T cells, enhanced with vaccines.
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A defense, that of innate immunity, which now seems able to play its part also against Sars-CoV-2 and its variants. Omicron included. This is the discovery published on Nature Immunology gives Matteo Eaters, researcher of Humanitas, e Elizabeth Pagani, researcher at the IRCCS San Raffaele hospital and a team of scientists coordinated by Alberto Mantovani, scientific director of Humanitas and professor emeritus Humanitas University, Cecilia Garlanda researcher and professor of Humanitas University ed Elisa Vicenzi, head of the Research Unit in Viral Pathogenesis and Biosecurity of the San Raffaele hospital IRCCS. The study also involved the Toscana Life Science Foundation with Rino Staircase, the Bellinzona Research Institute in Biomedicine and Queen Mary University of London.
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The Research on the interaction between Covid and innate immunity part immediately, at the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020. Since that March, the team of Humanitas researchers (thanks to funds from private individuals who have arrived at the institute) immediately gets to work focusing the study on the interaction between Covid and innate immunity, an area of strong competence of Professor Mantovani’s working group and Professor Garlanda. The two scientists began to work on some genes that are part of a family of ancestors of the antibodies (the so-called Ante-antibody) molecules present in the blood and body fluids. Professed Mantovani explains: “Focusing on the interaction between these and Sars-CoV-2, we discovered that one of the molecules of innate immunity, called Mannose Binding Lectin (MBL), binds to the Spike protein of the virus and blocks it. When Omicron appears, Sarah Mapelli, researcher bio-informatics of Humanitas, immediately extended the analysis on the structure of the protein in collaboration with the Bellinzona group, discovering that MBL is able to see and recognize Omicron as well, in addition to classic variants of the virus such as Delta“.
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The study then continued with the genetic analysis of data from hospital patients, crossed with those of databases from all over the world, conducted by the teacher Rosanna Asselta of Humanitas University. “It turned out that Genetic variations of MBL are associated with disease severity from Covid-19 – Cecilia explains Garlanda -. Now it will be a question of evaluating if this molecule can act as a biomarker to guide doctors’ choices in the face of such different and changing manifestations of the disease “.
The researchers are also evaluating whether MBL can be a candidate preventive and therapeutic agent since it is a molecule functionally similar to an antibody, from which the variants of the virus, at least the known ones, cannot escape.
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“In our evaluation of potential anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs – explains Elisa Vicenzi from San Raffaele – MBL demonstrates important antiviral activity that could be an additional weapon against variants in circulation, including Omicron“. AThere is currently no data on the interaction between this protective first line of defense mechanism and the vaccine-induced immune response. “To date we know that this innate resistance mechanism also ‘sees’ Omicron – continues Alberto Mantovani – and therefore probably contributes to the fact that, although this variant is recognized in a minor form by antibodies, the first line of defense holds. This does not take away from what we already know thanks to the data: vaccines provide significant and fundamental protection and remain our safety belt ”