FRANKFURT. The Institute of Medical Virology at
Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and the University of Kent’s
School of Biosciences (UK) have identified that a glycoprotein known as
transferrin may critically contribute to severe forms of COVID-19.
SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. It is
currently not known why some individuals develop only mild or no symptoms when
infected, whilst others experience severe, life-threatening forms of the
disease. However, it is known that the risk of COVID-19 becoming severe
increases with age and is higher in males than in females. Many severe COVID-19
cases are characterised by increased blood clotting and thrombosis formation.
The team combined existing data on gene expression in humans with
cell culture research of SARS-CoV-2-infected cells to search for molecules
involved in blood coagulation that differ between females and males, change
with age, and are regulated in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Out of more than 200 candidate factors, researchers identified a
glycoprotein called transferrin to be a procoagulant (a cause of blood
clotting) that increases with age, is higher in males than in females, and is
higher in SARS-CoV-2-infected cells. Hence, transferrin may have potential as a
biomarker for the early identification of COVID-19 patients at high risk of
severe disease.
Publication: Katie-May McLaughlin,
Marco Bechtel, Denisa Bojkova, Christian Münch, Sandra Ciesek, Mark N. Wass,
Martin Michaelis, Jindrich Cinatl, Jr.: COVID-19-Related
Coagulopathy - Is Transferrin a Missing Link? Diagnostics 2020, 10(8), 539;
https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics10080539
Further
information:
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Jindrich Cinatl
Institute for Medical Virology
University Hospital Frankfurt
Tel.:
+49 69 6301-6409
E-mail:
cinatl@em.uni-frankfurt.de
