Biomedical research company Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) said on Monday that the high levels of the sticky, pathogen-trapping webs produced by the overactive neutrophils cells were associated with the life-threatening blood clots and inflammation that occur in some patients with COVID-19 as reported online in the journal Blood.
Neutrophil Extracellular Traps (NETs) are a type of defense that the immune system deploys against certain pathogens--webs of DNA and toxins that ensnare and destroy viruses and bacteria. When too many of these NETs accumulate during a persistent infection, they can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome, which leads many patients with COVID-19 to require intensive care, added the company.
The researchers at CSHL, University of Utah Health, PEEL Therapeutics, and Weill Cornell Medicine collected blood samples from 33 hospitalized patients, as well as autopsy tissue. They found that biomarkers of NET formation were more abundant in patients who required ventilation and highest in the three study participants who eventually died from COVID-19.
In the company's laboratory, the neutrophils from patients with COVID-19 churned out exceptionally high levels of NETs and the researchers found healthy neutrophils behaved the same way when they were exposed to plasma from patients with the illness.
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