(ANSA) – ROME, JUL 21 – The coronavirus builds ad hoc ‘nano-tunnels’ to penetrate from the nose to the brain and this would explain the neurological symptoms such as mental confusion that are often associated with Covid.
This is suggested by laboratory experiments conducted by Chiara Zurzolo of the Pasteur Institute in France, the results of which are reported in the journal Science Advances.
It has always remained mysterious that the coronavirus could penetrate nerve cells, which unlike the nose and mouth lack the ACE2 receptor used by the virus to enter. However, several clinical findings and autopsies have extensively documented the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the brains of covid patients.
Pasteur’s experts cultured the virus in test tubes with brain cells and nasal mucosal cells, separately and together. When the virus was placed in tubes containing only neurons, it failed to penetrate the nerve cells; when nasal cells were added to the test tube, the virus created nano-tunnels, technically called ‘nanotubes’, to invade neurons starting from nasal cells.
According to Zurzolo, this discovery could lead to the development of ad hoc drugs to inhibit the development of nanotubes and thus prevent the neurological complications of Covid.
(ANSA).
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