In some patients who died with severe COVID-19 and respiratory failure, a jelly was formed in the lungs. Researchers have now established what the active agent in the jelly is and thanks to that, this new discovery can now be the key to new effective therapies. This according to a new study at Umeå University.
“There are already therapies that either slow down the body’s production of this jelly or breaks down the jelly through an enzyme. Our findings can also explain why cortisone seems to have an effect on COVID-19,” says Urban Hellman, researcher at Umeå University in Sweden.
When performing lung scans on critically ill patients with COVID-19 infection, medical professionals have been able to see white patches. Additionally, the autopsies of some deceased COVID-19 patients have shown that the lungs were filled with a clear liquid jelly, much resembling the lungs of someone who has drowned. It was previously unknown where this jelly originated from. Now though, a group of researchers at the Translational Research Centre at Umeå University have shown that the jelly consists of the substance hyaluronan, which is a polysaccharide in the glycosaminoglycan group.
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The Journal of Biological Chemistry: