Long-term damage post COVID. « Medicine in the Library

In a research published in “Nature Cell Biology” a mechanism of cellular DNA damage induced by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been identified, causing cellular aging and chronic inflammation. This study explains some pathological effects of the infection, even in the long term, and lays the foundations for new pharmacological treatments.

An exaggerated inflammatory response to SARS-CoV-2 infection is at the origin of the most harmful effects of COVID-19. It was known that some viruses were capable of inducing damage to cellular DNA and that failure to repair the damage caused tumors, cellular senescence and chronic inflammation.

“What we have observed – illustrate Ubaldo Gioia and Sara Tavella, first authors of the study – is that SARS-CoV-2, once it enters the cell, hijacks its fundamental processes, forcing it to stop producing deoxynucleotides, the “building blocks” of DNA, to make it produce ribonucleotides or the “bricks” that are used to synthesize the RNA of the cell and, above all, that of the virus. It is precisely this alteration of the cellular process operated by the virus to its advantage that allows the explosive viral replication within the cell infected by SARS-CoV-2.“

Read abstract of the article:
SARS-CoV-2 infection induces DNA damage, through CHK1 degradation and impaired 53BP1 recruitment, and cellular senescence.
Gioia, U., Tavella, S., Martínez-Orellana, P. et al.
Nat Cell Biol 25, 550–564 (2023).

Source: University of Trieste