New method to control the inflammatory response induced by COVID-19

Severe COVID-19 disease can cause excessive inflammation throughout the body, including the lungs, heart, and brain. Molly Gilligan, a Twin Cities student at the University of Minnesota, recently published an article in the magazine Cancer and metastasis reviews who studied the human body’s robust inflammatory response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is now recognized as a distinctive symptom.

Controlling the body’s inflammatory response to SARS-CoV-2 will likely be as important as antiviral therapies or a possible vaccine, according to the publication. Individual mediators, called cytokines, cause inflammation in response to tissue injury or infection. Mediators are a substance or structure that mediates a specific response in body tissue.

Rather than blocking cytokines, medical personnel could deactivate virus-induced inflammation by extensively activating the body’s natural inflammation-removing activities.

We are now recognizing the importance of controlling this robust inflammatory response in COVID-19 infection to reduce damage and mortality of associated organs. Finding new ways to dampen the body’s inflammatory response to COVID-19 will probably be as important as finding effective antiviral therapies to control COVID-19 infection and reduce life-threatening organ damage. “

Molly Gilligan, Student, Twin Cities, University of Minnesota

“Furthermore, these compounds have been found to be non-toxic and immunosuppressive in ongoing clinical trials for other inflammatory diseases, making them even more promising candidates for rapid clinical translation,” said Gilligan.

The investigation found that:

• A hallmark of SARS-CoV-2 infection is a cytokine storm, which is a drastic increase in the production of cytokines by immune cells;
• SARS-CoV-2 causes uncontrolled inflammation that can cause extensive organ damage, such as lung failure;
• Current therapeutic strategies in COVID-19 focus on inhibiting a single proinflammatory cytokine rather than broadly inhibiting the body’s inflammatory response;
• Lipid mediators derived from omega-3 fatty acids serve as the body’s natural “stop” signals to inflammation.

Increasing the levels of these lipid mediators in the body could be a new therapeutic approach to prevent life-threatening inflammation caused by SARS-CoV-2.

“What is exciting to us is that these lipid mediators that ‘turn off’ or resolve inflammation are already in clinical trials for other inflammation-induced diseases, such as eye disease, periodontal disease and pain,” said Dipak Panigrahy , an assistant professor of pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “Mediators can be applied quickly to deactivate inflammation in patients with COVID-19.”