Coronavirus could attack immune system like HIV by targeting protective cells, warn scientists

[bluewater]

Source: South China Morning Post, Hong Kong

The coronavirus that causes Covid-19 could kill the powerful immune cells that are supposed to kill the virus instead, scientists have warned.

The surprise discovery, made by a team of researchers from Shanghai and New York, coincided with frontline doctors' observation that Covid-19 could attack the human immune system and cause damages similar to that found in HIV patients.
...

Further investigations to the coronavirus infection on primary T cells would evoke "new ideas about pathogenic mechanisms and therapeutic interventions," the researchers said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology this week.
...

A doctor, who works in a public hospital treating Covid-19 patients in Beijing, said the discovery added another piece of evidence to a growing concern in medical circles that the coronavirus could sometimes behave like some of the most notorious viruses that directly attack the human immune system.

"More and more people compare it to HIV," said the doctor who requested not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Read more: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079443/coronavirus-could-target-immune-system-targeting-protective

---

I hope to god these preliminary reports turn out to be unsubstantiated.

But it raises the question, are we being told everything about this disease?

Have governments around the world all agreed to shut down their economies for months because there actually are insidious aspects of covid-19 that are not public knowledge yet?

EDIT: Ok, that last part sounded a bit conspiratorial, as some posters have pointed out. Let me clarify that. I do not mean to imply there is a cover-up, rather, that the ramifications of the latest findings are known better to the experts and government leadership that we in the general public at this time.

The steps taken to date have been extraordinary in scope and breadth, with nations shutting down entire economies and talk now of keeping them shut down into the summer, Trump's posturing to "re-open" the country not with standing.

Personally, I am just starting to wrap my head around how big the pandemic is in both medical and economic terms.

Thanks out to those that have discussed this with me down thread already.

[cstanleytech]

1. "could" is the operative word as it will need to actually be confirmed.

edit: BTW OP how about we leave the conspiracy theories to the pizzagate believers? Ok?

[bluewater]

7. How about we don't do personal attacks about OP's on peer-reviewed articles? OK?

cstanleytech (20,231 posts)

1. "could" is the operative word as it will need to actually be confirmed.

edit: BTW OP how about we leave the conspiracy theories to the pizzagate believers? Ok?

The OP is a news story commenting on a peer-reviewed journal article published just this week.

Further investigations to the coronavirus infection on primary T cells would evoke “new ideas about pathogenic mechanisms and therapeutic interventions,” the researchers said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology this week.

[LiberalArkie]

8. Early on, way before it was out oof China, there was talk that it was behaving a lot like

HIV in the way it acted and hid itself. But it may be common as I think TB will hide itself also.

[Igel]

36. The first case in the US out of China

was 18 days after the official notification.

Human-to-human transmission wasn't even declared yet.

[du_grad]

45. TB is caused by a bacteria

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the bacteria that causes TB. It is NOT a virus. It is part of the bacteria labelled "acid fast" because of the cell wall properties and the special staining methods necessary in order to see it on a slide.

M. tb walls itself off inside the lung sometimes instead of causing an active case of tuberculosis. This walling off can cause a tuberculin/PPD skin test to become positive, even though you do not have active disease. If one has a positive tuberculin/PPD test the next step is to get a chest xray to determine if you have active disease. If there are no lesions on the lung, then the patient must take a course of INH (antibiotic that works against M. tb) for at least six months.

I know about this because this happened to me in the lab in 1999. We had cultures on a patient that was positive for M. tuberculosis. We had a lab incident where three of us converted to PPD positive. None of us had active disease. I had to go on INH (isoniazid) for six months and see an infectious disease doctor to get checked out.

Please don't mix up bacterial diseases with viral diseases.

I am a retired clinical microbiologist.

[cstanleytech]

21. Was not an attempt to flame rather a request we keep conspiracy theories out of LBN even with

side comments if possible.
After all look at how the Republican base has been behaving based on such things for the past few decades and how more and more insane they have been behaving over stupid conspiracy theories they spout.

[paleotn]

33. Thank you!

CvD-19 is bad enough without adding low budget mini series like conspiratorial bullshit to it.

[bluewater]

38. Is it a conspiracy theory to think governments are more informed than the pubic right now?

It didn't mean there is a cover up of some sort, rather, I meant that there is a delay in when current medical/scientific details reach the general public.

Governments are provided the latest research findings before the general public. Later, as in the journal article that the OP discusses, those results are disseminated to the rest of the scientific/medical community and then to the general public. Results like mutation rates, possibility of re-infection, severity of illness... all those things have been started to be discussed with the general public, but it's an emerging picture.

Is it really that far fetched to feel that governments have a more complete picture of those results than we, the public, do at this time?

But I take your point. I hope I have clarified myself some here.

[cstanleytech]

40. Just to clarify I was not refering to the paper rather the part where you said

"Have governments around the world all agreed to shut down their economies for months because there actually are insidious aspects of covid-19 that are not public knowledge yet?"

I do offer you my apologies for the confusion over not being more clear earlier.

[bluewater]

41. Just to clarify, my timescale is days to weeks..

In the latest information reaching the general public.

I understand, as others have pointed out, that researchers are sharing information with each other and with their governments almost instantaneously.

But I feel that there might be a delay of days to weeks in telling the general public the ramifications of the latest findings.

I hope that clarifies my concerns. I have added an edit to the OP to address this point.

Thanks for the discussion.

[turbinetree]

2. And the orange wonder wanting to stand at is ego podium............

making remarks about Hoax, and some other nonsense and then something on May first and he wanted and before that easter day for everyone to get back out.................we demand some truthful answers we are not lab rats for the sake of money, if this hypothesis is correct ................

[olddad65]

3. He has never ever acted in this country's best interest, don't expect him to start now.

[turbinetree]

5. I don't he does not give one iota about you, me and anyone else.....................

he has proven that point since day one........right along with all of those that having been helping him ..............

[Newest Reality]

6. He and the GOP...

Are on a mission that is entirely contradictory to our country's best interests, at least for a majority of its people and the democracy we hold dear. The GOP has good reason to make the grab with Trump & Co. at this time.

That is well underway and these are some tumultuous times for a myriad of reasons.

[appalachiablue]

4. A critical issue, and why don't we have a global commission focusing

exclusively on the coronavirus?

K/R

[mwooldri]

16. We don't have a global commission because Trump...

... has abdicated his responsibilities as a world leader.

[warmfeet]

9. If this is true,

wouldn't it mean that a vaccine is not possible, or incredibly difficult to achieve, such as with HIV? I really hope this is not the case.

[bluewater]

14. Not necessarily, the OP article discusses some differences between the viruses

But there was one major difference between Sars-CoV-2 and HIV, according to the new study.
HIV can replicate in the T cells and turn them into factories to generate more copies to infect other cells.
But Lu and Jiang did not observe any growth of the coronavirus after it entered the T-cells, suggesting that the virus and T-cells might end up dying together.
The study gives rise to some new questions. For instance, the coronavirus can exist for weeks on some patients without causing any symptoms. How it interacted with the T cells in these patients remained unclear.
Some critically ill patients also experienced cytokine storms, where the immune system overreacts and attacks healthy cells.

More research will tell.

[ananda]

10. This isn't new news.

In fact, it was reported some time ago.

Along with information that HIV meds
helped.

[bluewater]

13. The article is dated April 12th, about research published this past week.

I believe additional research and news on an existing subject is considered "new" news.

I expect more "new" news articles on this aspect of the covid-19 virus will follow as more research is done.

[dalton99a]

11. Kick

[ToxMarz]

12. I'm not sure it's so much about whether we are being told everything

Or even could understand a great deal of the information (unless that is your field of study). It is so new there is FAR more we don't know about the virus than we do know. Even this is preliminary and what the exact ramifications unknown.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. Journalists should be all over the compromised-immunity angle

Patterns of comorbidity for immune-compromised individuals should emerge, as would cases of immune-compromised individuals who recovered from COVID-19. It doesn't have to be patients with AIDS, there are other factors that compromise immunity. Also, are mildly immune-compromised any better off than those most vulnerable.

It is a tragic aspect, glad to see it posted!

[bluewater]

18. I am wondering if this research relates to possible re-infection by the covid-19 virus.

Medical researchers are examining the cases of people who contracted the virus, then got well and were negative for the virus when tested to be released but later fell ill again and tested positive once more for the virus.

They are not sure if this was due to an actual re-infection of cured people, or that the initial tests were false negatives.

How covid-19 actually interacts with T-cells could be effecting results in either possibility.

[Fiendish Thingy]

17. This article merely reports a hypothesis, with no evidence

Just because it is in a peer reviewed journal does not mean it is a scientifically controlled study. The journal is reporting a “discovery” based on “observations” by doctors. These kinds of reports can indeed provide clues to guide in depth controlled studies, but are not evidence themselves.

[bluewater]

19. Not true. Did you actually read the article?

Did you overlook this part?

Lu Lu, from Fudan University in Shanghai, and Jang Shibo, from the New York Blood Centre, joined the living virus, which is officially known as Sars-CoV-2, on laboratory-grown T lymphocyte cell lines.
T lymphocytes, also known as T cells, play a central role in identifying and eliminating alien invaders in the body.
They do this by capturing a cell infected by a virus, bore a hole in its membrane and inject toxic chemicals into the cell. These chemicals then kill both the virus and infected cell and tear them to pieces.

To the surprise of the scientists, the T cell became a prey to the coronavirus in their experiment. They found a unique structure in the virus’s spike protein that appeared to have triggered the fusion of a viral envelope and cell membrane when they came into contact.
The virus’s genes then entered the T cell and took it hostage, disabling its function of protecting humans.

The researchers did the same experiment with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, another coronavirus, and found that the Sars virus did not have the ability to infect T cells.

The reason, they suspected, was the lack of a membrane fusion function. Sars, which killed hundreds in a 2003 outbreak, can only infect cells carrying a specific receptor protein known as ACE2, and this protein has an extremely low presence in T cells.

Further investigations to the coronavirus infection on primary T cells would evoke “new ideas about pathogenic mechanisms and therapeutic interventions,” the researchers said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology this week.

[Fiendish Thingy]

20. It reports a collection of data, without definitive conclusions, suggests hypotheses instead

Throughout the report the language uses qualifiers, and suggests further research is needed.



It provides some important observations requiring further study.

[bluewater]

22. "This article merely reports a hypothesis, with no evidence"

Real science is all about suggesting "hypotheses" based on evidence. That is how real science works.

You stated that there was "no evidence". You were clearly wrong.

The scientists conducted experiments and published their results, they did NOT just talk to doctors as you previously claimed:

"The journal is reporting a “discovery” based on “observations” by doctors."

Enjoy your day.

[greenjar_01]

23. " said the doctor who requested not to be named"

Jesus. How very scientific.

The South China Morning Post will print literally anything.

[bluewater]

24. Did you not read the entire article? Where the researchers discuss their experimental results?

Perhaps you missed this part:

Lu Lu, from Fudan University in Shanghai, and Jang Shibo, from the New York Blood Centre, joined the living virus, which is officially known as Sars-CoV-2, on laboratory-grown T lymphocyte cell lines.
T lymphocytes, also known as T cells, play a central role in identifying and eliminating alien invaders in the body.
They do this by capturing a cell infected by a virus, bore a hole in its membrane and inject toxic chemicals into the cell. These chemicals then kill both the virus and infected cell and tear them to pieces.

To the surprise of the scientists, the T cell became a prey to the coronavirus in their experiment. They found a unique structure in the virus’s spike protein that appeared to have triggered the fusion of a viral envelope and cell membrane when they came into contact.
The virus’s genes then entered the T cell and took it hostage, disabling its function of protecting humans.

The researchers did the same experiment with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, another coronavirus, and found that the Sars virus did not have the ability to infect T cells.

The reason, they suspected, was the lack of a membrane fusion function. Sars, which killed hundreds in a 2003 outbreak, can only infect cells carrying a specific receptor protein known as ACE2, and this protein has an extremely low presence in T cells.

Further investigations to the coronavirus infection on primary T cells would evoke “new ideas about pathogenic mechanisms and therapeutic interventions,” the researchers said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology this week.

Late Breaking News limits an OP to 4 paragraphs, it's hard to fit details like the above excerpt into that, people need to read the linked article for more information.

[roamer65]

25. Fearmongering by the SCMP.

[bluewater]

26. Is it fear mongering when they provide research details like this:

Lu Lu, from Fudan University in Shanghai, and Jang Shibo, from the New York Blood Centre, joined the living virus, which is officially known as Sars-CoV-2, on laboratory-grown T lymphocyte cell lines.
T lymphocytes, also known as T cells, play a central role in identifying and eliminating alien invaders in the body.
They do this by capturing a cell infected by a virus, bore a hole in its membrane and inject toxic chemicals into the cell. These chemicals then kill both the virus and infected cell and tear them to pieces.

To the surprise of the scientists, the T cell became a prey to the coronavirus in their experiment. They found a unique structure in the virus’s spike protein that appeared to have triggered the fusion of a viral envelope and cell membrane when they came into contact.
The virus’s genes then entered the T cell and took it hostage, disabling its function of protecting humans.

The researchers did the same experiment with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, another coronavirus, and found that the Sars virus did not have the ability to infect T cells.

The reason, they suspected, was the lack of a membrane fusion function. Sars, which killed hundreds in a 2003 outbreak, can only infect cells carrying a specific receptor protein known as ACE2, and this protein has an extremely low presence in T cells.

Further investigations to the coronavirus infection on primary T cells would evoke “new ideas about pathogenic mechanisms and therapeutic interventions,” the researchers said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology this week.

Doctors who had seen the bodies said the damage to the internal organs was similar to a combination of Sars and Aids.
The gene behind the fusion function in Sars-CoV-2 was not found in other coronaviruses in human or animals.
But some deadly human viruses such as Aids and Ebola have similar sequences, prompting speculation that the novel coronavirus might have been spreading quietly in human societies for a long time before causing this pandemic.

But there was one major difference between Sars-CoV-2 and HIV, according to the new study.
HIV can replicate in the T cells and turn them into factories to generate more copies to infect other cells.
But Lu and Jiang did not observe any growth of the coronavirus after it entered the T-cells, suggesting that the virus and T-cells might end up dying together.
The study gives rise to some new questions. For instance, the coronavirus can exist for weeks on some patients without causing any symptoms. How it interacted with the T cells in these patients remained unclear.
Some critically ill patients also experienced cytokine storms, where the immune system overreacts and attacks healthy cells.
But why and how the coronavirus triggers that remains poorly understood.

If that's fear mongering, perhaps it's warranted somewhat, don't you think?

[keithbvadu2]

27. Perhaps you can actually be too healthy to survive coronavirus

Perhaps you can actually be too healthy to survive coronavirus

UNDERSTAND THE CYTOKINE STORM

This coronavirus can trigger "Cytokine release syndrome" (a cytokine storm) in persons with particularly healthy immune systems. COVID-19 is a disease that you actually have a better chance of surviving if your immune system is slightly compromised. The 1918 flu pandemic (The Spanish Flu) killed between 50 and 100 million people, many of whom were young and healthy. Evidently, the virus triggers the body's immune system and keeps triggering it, non-stop and relentlessly, until the infected person is killed by their own, super-strong immune system. That is the essence of a cytokine storm, and it's why many young, healthy people are likely to be struck down by this disease.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213100840

[no_hypocrisy]

28. Then is it feasible to create a vaccine against the CV?

If it's more like HIV than influenza, and there isn't a vaccine to protect against HIV, is 18 months to get one ready realistic?

[bluewater]

29. the OP article discusses some differences between the viruses

But there was one major difference between Sars-CoV-2 and HIV, according to the new study.
HIV can replicate in the T cells and turn them into factories to generate more copies to infect other cells.
But Lu and Jiang did not observe any growth of the coronavirus after it entered the T-cells, suggesting that the virus and T-cells might end up dying together.
The study gives rise to some new questions. For instance, the coronavirus can exist for weeks on some patients without causing any symptoms. How it interacted with the T cells in these patients remained unclear.
Some critically ill patients also experienced cytokine storms, where the immune system overreacts and attacks healthy cells.

So time and more research will tell how effective a vaccine will be, but it's a positive sign that covid-19 does not reproduce inside the T-cells as HIV does.

[no_hypocrisy]

30. Unless it mutates . . . . .

Sh*t, like most medical science, nothing is 100%.

[bluewater]

32. Honestly, that's the most unsettling question.

Mutations. Mutation rates.

I am going to stop thinking about this topic for the rest of today.

I'll do a dark humor lol now and say thanks for the discussion!

[paleotn]

31. Your last statement.....Ummm, no.

The amount of international cooperation necessary for that, and the fact that government officials anywhere outside of Pyongyang can't keep a damn thing secret for very long, completely deflates your argument.

Fact is....it takes months if not years to fully understand a novel virus. It hasn't been around long enough for that. The only reason we do know as much as we do now is the massive effort by researchers across the globe poking and prodding this thing to see how it ticks. An effort that's unprecedented in virology and epidemiology. And no....a virus this deadly or communicable COULD NOT circulate for months without there being very, very serious alarm bells that cannot be covered up.

In short, please stay out of the realm of internet conspiracies. When tempted, just ask yourself...what would Occam think about this. If he thinks it's bullshit, you be smart to bet dollars to donuts it's exactly that.....eom.

[bluewater]

34. It's not so much a cover up as the time delay in info becoming widely available.

Governments are provided the latest research findings before the general public. Later, as in the journal article that the OP discusses, those results are disseminated to the rest of the scientific/medical community and then to the general public. Results like mutation rates, possibility of re-infection, severity of illness... all those things have been started to be discussed with the general public, but it's an emerging picture. Is it really that far fetched to feel that governments have a more complete picture of those results than we, the public, do at this time?



But I take your point.

[paleotn]

37. Not this time...

Whats unprecedented about the collaboration on CvD-19 is they're not waiting for journal submission to announce results. Researchers everywhere are sharing their data real time with colleagues. Findings are being corroborated or not in days instead of months or years. And this research spans span the globe. It's absolutely amazing. And absolutely cannot be covered up.

[Igel]

39. There's not much time delay.

For this to be peer-reviewed this quickly is phenomenal turnaround.

I'm used to rummaging in arxiv.org for all sorts of preprints when I can't get to an article because it's paywalled.

Arxiv.org is a preprint archive. You write something in astronomy or physics, you submit it for review and you often you post it to arxiv.org. As things get updated, you update arxiv.org. Some journals frown upon it. Many don't. I've seen articles submitted where virtually nothing in the bibliography was in print at time of submission. When it was accepted, they updated their bibliographies. So you could get something in print in 5/19, accepted for publication in 3/19, citing things published in 4/19, leaving naifs wondering just how the hell *that* could happen--citing something in print in March that wasn't in print until April. The power of arxiv. It's a glorious thing.

For bleeding-edge research in biology and medicine, which includes covid-19/SARS-CoV-2, check out https://www.medrxiv.org/ and https://connect.biorxiv.org/relate/content/181.

Yes, arxiv.org was first.

There will be things not on the arxiv sites. Some publications restrict preprint publication. And China's currently started to require that some sorts of SARS-CoV-2 publications be cleared by their ministry of science and others by their ministry of education. Because narrative control is more important than mere science. Totalitarians are gonna.

[bluewater]

42. Thanks for the links.

[yaesu]

35. this is the second time I've seen covid compared to HIV, & its presumed that both came from bats nt

[reACTIONary]

43. Here is the actual source....

SARS-CoV-2 infects T lymphocytes through its spike protein-mediated membrane fusion

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41423-020-0424-9
https://rdcu.be/b3wuu

It is published in the "correspondence" section of Cellular & Molecular Immunology, that is, it is not a full-up research article. It is a work-in-progress report of recent, notable observation. It is experimental and exploratory in nature.

The publication is under the umbrella of NatureResearch, which is under SpringerNature

From the About

About Nature Research

Nature Research is here to serve the research community by publishing its most significant discoveries—findings that advance knowledge and address some of the greatest challenges that we face as a society today. Our journals publish not only primary research but also reviews, critical comment, news and analysis.

From Nature—the leading international weekly journal of science first published in 1869—to selective subject-specific subscription journals including Nature Genetics and Nature Physics and broad open-access journals such as Nature Communications and Scientific Reports, there is a home for your research within our family of journals.

[bluewater]

44. Thanks for the link.

[DenverJared]

46. Bogus article

If that were the case, no one would have recovered from SARS-COV-2 infection and it would be 100% fatal

[woodsprite]

47. There's a lot more money involved now than in 1918, but the procedures

seem to be the same (shutting down of the economy, schools, stores, etc.). It's even similar in that people ignored the orders and continued to spread the virus. This went on for 2 years. When you read articles from the time, it's just like reading today's news. All that we are doing now was done back then, there is just more people and more money flow involved.