Theoretical and Natural Science
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Vol. 16, 04 December 2023
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, much research has been done to understand SARS-CoV-2's and COVID-19, the disease it cause. The pathway that the virus relies on to infect cells is through binding of the viral protein to the ACE2 receptor on the surface of host cells. After replication, the virus most often exits the cell by lysosomal exocytosis, which releases the virus into the extracellular space, and the cycle repeats. However, cell-cell fusion caused by SARS-CoV-2 can promote viral spread by fusing neighboring cells to form syncytia, leading to the infection of neighboring cells. One of the major concerns regarding SARS-CoV-2 is the neuroinvasive potential the virus exhibits. Cell-cell fusion is observed in neuronal cells as well, potentially compromising the overall integrity of neuronal activities. Thus, in this research proposal, cell-cell fusion and its impact on brains will be investigated by assaying its influence on protein aggregations in brains. The proposal plans to apply both brain organoids and animal models for assessment. Hypothetically, once cell-cell fusion and formation of protein is observed in brain tissue samples, more information can be revealed towards comprehending the mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 activities during infection.
SARS-Cov-2, Brain, Cell-Cell Fusion, Neurodegenerative Disease, Protein Aggregation
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The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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