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- Science & Education
- 04 mei 2022
- Last updated: 03 May 2022
Our antibodies – crucial in the fight against the SARS-CoV-2 virus – are coated with sugars
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from 15 departments of the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) discovered that they could do more for patients if they joined forces. In this way, the BEAT-COVID group is rapidly gaining knowledge about COVID-19, the role of the immune system and – recently – the predictability of the disease course.
“Our antibodies – crucial in the fight against the SARS-CoV-2 virus – are coated in sugars. Depending on how they are coated, sugars can change the way antibodies behave. Based on our study, which took 159 in the hospital Inpatients (who were mildly and severely ill and who received follow-up checks after hospital discharge), we found that specific coating patterns can be observed during the early stages of infection, and these reflect how the disease will progress.” explains Tamas Pongracz, PhD candidate at the Center for Proteomics and Metabolomics (CPM) of the LUMC. The findings of the BEAT-COVID research group are published in eBioMedicine, as part of The Lancet Discovery Science.
In the clinic
“This is great news from a clinical perspective,” says Anna Roukens, internist-infectiologist at the LUMC’s Infectious Diseases Department. According to Roukens, there are big differences between patients who are admitted to a general ward or to the intensive care unit (ICU): “that is why we need to find out who should stay in the hospital and who can be safely discharged to home sick”. Throughout the pandemic, however, determining which people are at greater risk for worsening has presented significant challenges. “We’ve seen countless times that young people who initially seemed fit suddenly ended up in ICU. But now we know that certain sugars and coating patterns act as a ‘marker’ that can help us predict the severity of COVID-19 and make safer decisions. about hospitalization”.
From patterns to functions
“Despite our new insights into what these antibodies look like in admitted patients of varying degrees of illness, we are still unsure what they actually do during the course of COVID-19. For example, the study points to a link between sugar coating patterns and inflammation. , but how they contribute to disease mechanisms remains to be explored,” notes Pongracz. To address this, the researcher’s next step is to examine antibody function at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. “Once we figure that out, we can see if we can address the severity of COVID-19 in patients with medical interventions,” Roukens concludes.
Do you want to know more about BEAT-COVID? Watch Anna Roukens’ PEP talk on YouTube
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- Name author and/or edited by: LUMC
- Photographer or photo agency: : INGImages
- Source for this article: : LUMC
- What is the URL for this resource?: https://www.lumc.nl/over-het-lumc/nieuws/2022/Mei/beat-covid-team-ontdekt-antilichamen-met-suikerlaagje-die-ziekteverloop-voorspellen/
- Original title: BEAT-COVID team discovers sugar-coated antibodies that predict disease progression
- Target audience: Healthcare Professionals, Students
- Datum: 2022-05-03