II researched this topic on the internet but I couldn’t find enough resources for people who don’t know medical terminology and I decided to describe it a little bit here in this topic;
What is the mechanism of action of this virus?
Simply, viruses are micro-organisms which they can reproduce in the live host cell and damage its host cells by exploding the cell or making the change in the function of its host.
They’re not alive and completely reliant on an organism in which they can enter it and use it as a copy machine.
Usually, every cell in our body has the specific receptor that it can receive information from the environment, and these receptors only work if specific chemical binds to that receptor, this key and lock effect activates series of action in the cell that causes the certain response to the trigger.
For example; if FGF( Fibroblast growth factor) binds to receptors on fibroblast, it for example; If FGF( Fibroblast growth factor) binds to receptors on fibroblast, it causes fibroblast cells to duplicate and reproduce.
COVID-19 virus uses a specific kind of receptors called ACE2 (Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2) in lungs, which is a receptor that controls blood pressure in our body and enters the cell, after getting absorbed its outer layer (which contains lipids and spikes) peels off and main genetic material (RNA) gets released into the cytoplasm of that cell, then it uses its special enzymes to bind to our copy machine called ribosomes and copies itself million times.
Then these copies are now available to attack more cells with ACE2 receptors on them.
Now, the immune system notices something wrong in our body, it releases a chemical that tells affected cell to suicide itself and immune cell calls more immune cells to gather on, but that messenger chemical also dilates vessels, so serum liquid penetrates to the effected tissue alongside the immune cells, so lungs get filled by liquid as well.
Now, our affected site of the lung is getting attacked by our immune system, and accumulation of our plasma liquid makes it hard for lungs to exchange gases, so our blood oxygen saturation goes down as our immune system tries to respond to the pathogen.
Here it was an explanation of the Coronavirus mechanism of action as simple as I could explain it!
I hope you liked it, In the next parts I want to discuss why it’s so contagious and why we couldn’t find any drugs.
Let me know what you think in comments.
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To be continued…
Blog| Mehdi Gorbani 