How does the virus get into our cells? Exactly how mild is a moderate training course– and does the virus also damage the brain and genital body organs? Just how does the virus assault our body? The virus docks with its spike-like outgrowths, the spike proteins, to our cells, specifically to the supposed ACE2 receptor. The cell utilizes him as an entrance gate. It is located on several body organs, on our blood vessels, however also outside on cells of our nasal mucosa and in the vocal cords. This is where the infection generally nests initially. What happens next off, in other words: the virus pirates the contaminated cell and causes it to create coronaviruses itself. So our own cells end up being a virus factory. Eventually, the cell causes an automated suicide program and bursts– and the infection infects a lot more cells.
Key and Lock. If you would like to know more regarding it: The spike protein fits on the ACE2 receptor like a type in a lock – yet in order for it to be able to use the receptor as an entry gate, it should initially be triggered. This is done by 2 even more healthy proteins from the membrane layer shell of the assaulted cell. They divided the spike protein, which consequently transforms its form. Right here one more receptor healthy protein comes into play, which guides the infection to the ACE2 receptor, so to speak: the neuropilin-1. It likewise remains on the mucosal cells, especially on those of the nose. Scientists presume that SARS-CoV-2 is so effective in spreading because, in addition to the ACE2 receptor, it can additionally utilize the neuropilin1 receptor – which paves the way for the virus to the ACE2 receptor.
Reprogramming of the cell. Not a pure breathing infection
As soon as the spike protein has actually successfully anchored, the cell membrane of the captured cell turns inward and encloses the virus, as if in a bubble. This is how the virus is transferred right into the cell. Inside, the bladder after that opens and releases the hereditary information of the coronavirus into the cell. This is the start of a conversion process: our cells are exchanged virus factories. The hereditary information of the coronavirus is read and reproduced. In order to secure the genetic information, envelopes are formed around the coronavirus hereditary information, to ensure that many small viral blisters are formed. They gradually displace various other structures inside the cell, until at some point the cells cause an automatic self-destruction program and ultimately ruptured. This is how the infection gets involved in various other cells, with which it after that does the very same. Not a pure breathing infection. If the coronavirus might only contaminate the cells of our nasopharyngeal space, the virus may be, like some of its loved ones, a pure respiratory system infection – and may create “just” pneumonia in addition to chilly signs and symptoms. So it was with his forefather the Sars-CoV-1 infection. However it’s not like that. The virus has the ability to use not just the ACE2 receptor, yet also the neuropilin1 receptor. And: these healthy proteins are found on cells all over our body, not just in the respiratory tract, but also in the digestive tract, in the heart, in the liver, the genital areas, the retina and in the brain. That’s why SARS-CoV-2 can affect all body organs– that’s what makes it so unsafe.
Does the infection also harm the brain?
Yes, that can occur. The initial indicator that the infection can additionally pass through the mind was the loss of the sense of scent and taste, which frequently occurred throughout an infection – yet just extremely hardly ever in the Omikron variation. Specifically exactly how the devices for this are has actually not yet been plainly clarified. One feasible description is that the very same receptors that the virus needs to get in the cell lie in specific locations of the mind. Specifically a great deal of them being in the olfactory mucosa in the upper component of the nose. The olfactory mucosa is linked to the olfactory bulb via nerve fibers– from there the sensory stimulation is directed additionally right into the brain. And virus might be found both in the olfactory mucosa and in the olfactory nerve.
