Pain Relief Caused by SARS-CoV-2 Infection May Help Explain COVID-19 Spread
martyb writes:
Pain Relief Caused by SARS-CoV-2 Infection May Help Explain COVID-19 Spread:
The finding may explain why nearly half of all people who get COVID-19 experience few or no symptoms, even though they are able to spread the disease, according to the study's corresponding author Rajesh Khanna, PhD, a professor in the UArizona College of Medicine - Tucson's Department of Pharmacology.
[...] View an animated video of how SARS-CoV-2 reduces pain, and a video of Dr. Rajesh Khanna explaining how his team identified the phenomenon.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released updated data Sept. 10 estimating that 50% of COVID-19 transmission occurs prior to the onset of symptoms and 40% of COVID-19 infections are asymptomatic.
[...] Many biological pathways signal the body to feel pain. One is through a protein named vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A), which plays an essential role in blood vessel growth but also has been linked to diseases such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and, most recently, COVID-19.
Like a key in a lock, when VEGF-A binds to the receptor neuropilin, it initiates a cascade of events resulting in the hyperexcitability of neurons, which leads to pain. Dr. Khanna and his research team found that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds to neuropilin in exactly the same location as VEGF-A.
"The spike protein completely reversed the VEGF-induced pain signaling," Dr. Khanna said. "It didn't matter if we used very high doses of spike or extremely low doses - it reversed the pain completely."
They are also investigating neuropilin inhibitors as pain relievers.
Journal Reference:
Aubin Moutal, Laurent F. Martin, Lisa Boinon, et al. SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein co-opts VEGF-A/Neuropilin-1 receptor signaling to induce analgesia [open], PAIN (DOI: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000002097)
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