A simple model of COVID-19 explains disease severity and the effect of treatments.
Sci Rep
; 12(1): 14210, 2022 08 20.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2000927
ABSTRACT
Considerable effort has been made to better understand why some people suffer from severe COVID-19 while others remain asymptomatic. This has led to important clinical findings; people with severe COVID-19 generally experience persistently high levels of inflammation, slower viral load decay, display a dysregulated type-I interferon response, have less active natural killer cells and increased levels of neutrophil extracellular traps. How these findings are connected to the pathogenesis of COVID-19 remains unclear. We propose a mathematical model that sheds light on this issue by focusing on cells that trigger inflammation through molecular patterns infected cells carrying pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and damaged cells producing damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). The former signals the presence of pathogens while the latter signals danger such as hypoxia or lack of nutrients. Analyses show that SARS-CoV-2 infections can lead to a self-perpetuating feedback loop between DAMP expressing cells and inflammation, identifying the inability to quickly clear PAMPs and DAMPs as the main contributor to hyperinflammation. The model explains clinical findings and reveal conditions that can increase the likelihood of desired clinical outcome from treatment administration. In particular, the analysis suggest that antivirals need to be administered early during infection to have an impact on disease severity. The simplicity of the model and its high level of consistency with clinical findings motivate its use for the formulation of new treatment strategies.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19 Drug Treatment
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Sci Rep
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S41598-022-18244-2
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