A new study on the novel coronavirus has claimed that the nose is likely to be the main source of the “viral entry points” of the disease. The team behind the findings expressed their hope that the new information can help health experts and officials stop the spread of COVID-19, which has infected nearly three million people across the globe and claimed over 205,000 lives.
According to Science Daily, researchers realized that COVID-19 relied on two specific proteins — ACE2 and TMPRSS2 protease — to gain entry into human cells. Accordingly, they sought to see which tissues had higher amounts of the proteins that the coronavirus could utilize.
After taking around 20 different tissue samples from places like the lung, nasal cavity, eye, gut, and kidney, they found that the vulnerable proteins were expressed the most in cells on the inner lining of the nose, specifically the mucus-producing goblet cells and ciliated cells.
0 comments :
Post a Comment