A recent study published in eLife has revealed five coronavirus proteins that might cause strokes or heart attacks.

Almost two years after the pandemic began, with millions of people already dead, the riddle of which proteins of the Sars-Cov-2 virus are responsible for serious vascular damage, to the point of causing heart attacks or strokes, has yet to be answered.

Now, for the first time, a team of scientists led by the University of Tel Aviv (Israel) has identified 5 of the 29 proteins that comprise the virus, which are responsible for destroying blood vessels.

The researchers anticipate that identifying these proteins may help in the development of Covid-19-specific medicines that minimise vascular damage.

The new study’s findings were published in the journal e-Life.

“We see a very high incidence of vascular disease and blood clotting, for example stroke and heart attack, among COVID patients,” said Dr. Ben Maoz, adding, “We tend to think of COVID as primarily a respiratory disease, but the truth is that coronavirus patients are up to three times more likely to have a stroke or heart attack. All the evidence shows that the virus severely damages the blood vessels or the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels. However, to this day the virus has been treated as one entity. We wanted to find out which proteins in the virus are responsible for this type of damage.”

All symptoms indicate that the virus is causing substantial harm to blood vessels or endothelial cells.

The novel coronavirus is a relatively simple virus with 29 distinct proteins (it is simple compared to the tens of thousands of proteins produced by the human body).

The Tel Aviv University researchers used the RNA from each of the Covid-19 proteins and studied the reactions in the laboratory when different RNA sequences were put into the cells of human blood arteries. As a result, they were able to identify five coronavirus proteins that cause blood vessel injury.

“When the coronavirus enters the body, it begins to produce 29 proteins, a new virus is formed, that virus produces 29 new proteins, and so on,” explained Dr. Maoz.

During this process, blood arteries change from ‘opaque tubes’ to permeable networks or bits of fabric, and blood clotting increases.

The researchers carefully investigated the effect of each of the virus’s 29 proteins and discovered the five specific proteins that cause the most harm to endothelial cells and thus vascular integrity and function.

Furthermore, they employed a computational model built by Prof. Sharan that allowed them to assess and identify which coronavirus proteins have the greatest influence on other tissues without seeing them ‘in action’ in the lab.

According to Maoz, the discovery of these proteins can have a substantial impact on fights against the virus.

“Our research could help find targets for a drug that will be used to stop the virus’s activity, or at least minimize damage to blood vessels.”

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