Recently, the internationally renowned academic journal "Nature " published a research paper written by researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK. The study found that the drug ursodeoxycholic acid used to treat some liver disease diseases has the effect of preventing new coronavirus infection. Since ursodeoxycholic acid is a low-cost patented expired drug, this research result has attracted widespread attention, and some people describe it as a "coronavirus terminator."
However, Fotios Sampaziotis, the corresponding author of the paper and a scientist at the Wellcome-MRC Stem Cell Institute of Cambridge, emphasized in an exclusive interview with the Global Times reporter that the efficacy of this drug still needs to be verified in the next prospective randomized clinical trial.
In fact, in principle, if this drug is a terminator, it would be an exaggeration. Today, let’s talk to you about whether the new crown will end completely.
1, the route of COVID-19 infection
The route of COVID-19 infection is that the virus comes to the cell, and then binds to the human body's own ACE2 receptor through the spike protein of the new coronavirus, just like unlocking, opening the cell, and then the new coronavirus enters the cell.
Next, the virus began to use a series of synthesis machines of the cells themselves to start producing various components for the virus and finally assembled into the new coronavirus, and then released to infect more cells.
You can see that the two keys here are the spike protein of the new coronavirus and the ACE2 of the cell itself, one key and one lock.
2, ursodeoxycholic acid
What can ursodeoxycholic acid do in the face of the new crown? The idea is to block the keyhole and block the keyhole, so that the new crown protein cannot unlock and it will be difficult to get into the cells. However, there is no way for the human body to enter the ACE2 keyhole. It's like, how to treat headaches, and if you cut your head, it won't hurt.
Or, this is the Thousand Days of Defense of Thieves. In order to avoid COVID-19 infection, ursodeoxycholic acid is taken to reduce the ACE2 receptor content in the human body. Even if the cost of the drug is low, it is not as cost-free as breathing air, and this thing is not purely harmless.
For example, in the use of ursodeoxycholic acid mass gallbladder stones , the most common adverse event is diarrhea, and pain, itching, bloating, etc. have also been reported. In addition, research has found that ursodeoxycholic acid inhibits the human immune process, such as inhibiting the phagocytosis of immune cells. In order to inhibit the new crown, it is impossible to lower the immune system in the body. Other diseases are not vegetarians. Not only that, ursodeoxycholic acid, from the name, we can generally get its main role as gallbladder , and the same is true for clinical applications.
However, this is not the case with the distribution of ACE2. The figure below is the distribution of ACE2.
And at present, Omickron seems to have decreased pulmonary dysfunction, and is mainly manifested as upper respiratory tract infection . Does this mean that Omickron has undergone major changes?
Not to mention, the new crown does not only infect people.
people can take ursodeoxycholic acid, but animals cannot, so they will be continuously output. Could it be that they will continue to eat it?
It can be said that it is actually very difficult to use ursodeoxycholic acid as the ultimate in the new crown. Someone once said that people around the world take ursodeoxycholic acid at the same time and fight against the virus at the same time. In fact, this behavior has proved impossible in the early stages of the new crown. If people from all over the world had dealt with it at the same time, it would not have spread like this. Don’t overestimate human rationality.
3, Is there any way to deal with the new crown?
In fact, if you want to talk about coping strategies, there are actually other things, such as using monoclonal antibodies to directly connect to the new coronavirus spike protein, so that you will not be self-blocked like you are targeting ACE2 in the human body.But antibodies are expensive, and they also depend on the mood of the new crown. If it changes drastically, it will be useless.
At present, let's coexist.
Or the new crown itself evolved completely low damage, or human evolution becomes stronger. That's how humans came about when they were facing the Black Death .
In the face of the pandemic, some genetic mutations that can resist the Black Death were forcibly screened out (classic Darwin natural selection), typical of which is rs2549794. The association between this variant and ERAP2 expression can enhance ERAP2 expression by 5 times.
In the end, people are becoming less and less susceptible to Black Death.
Fan, Caibin, et al. "ACE2 expression in kidney and testis may cause kidney and testis infection in COVID-19 patients."Frontiers in medicine7 (2021): 563893.
Lam, S. D., et al. "SARS-CoV-2 spike protein predicted to form complexes with host receptor protein orthologues from a broad range of mammals."Scientific reports10.1 (2020): 1-14.
Klunk, J., Vilgalys, T.P., Demeure, C.E.et al.Evolution of immune genes is associated with the Black Death.Nature611, 312–319 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05349-x
