” Current infection avoidance methods rely on vaccines that trigger our immune system to respond primarily by producing antibodies. The antibodies attach to a particular part of the infection that acts like the secret and avoid it from being able to connect to the lung cell receptor, which is like a lock on the outside of the lung cell.
When SARS-CoV-2 goes into the lungs, it binds to receptors including the angiotensin transforming enzyme 2 receptor, understood as ACE2, on the external membranes of lung cells. A cellular enzyme changes the shape of a protein on the infection to allow SARS-CoV-2 to breach the membrane and infect the cell.
When the pandemic began, Vercelli and Vadim Pivniouk, associate professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, along with other members of the research study group, relied on data they gathered in an asthma avoidance study to figure out whether OM-85 treatment affected the ACE2 receptor and enzyme included in COVID-19.
Vercelli worked together with Dr. Janko Nikolich-Žugich, professor and chair of the Department of Immunobiology and BIO5 member, and Jennifer Uhrlaub, associate research study researcher, and found that pretreatment of cells with OM-85 avoided infection by SARS-CoV-2. The capability of OM-85 to avoid viral infection was discovered to be based on its capability to reduce the expression of the ACE2 receptor.
” ACE2 is the crucial piece that ideas the scale,” stated Vercelli, who likewise serves as director for molecular genomics at the Asthma and Airway Disease Research. “Without that initial attachment– the crucial fitting into a lock– the whole infectious procedure is hindered and blocked.”
The mechanism by which OM-85 avoids viral infection is unlike that of vaccines or antibody treatments, which focus on a viral protein. By targeting the receptor, OM-85 may shut the extremely door that enables the coronavirus to contaminate cells, which might make it efficient versus any variants that contaminate cells through the ACE2 receptor.
” Original research studies of this type need us to check whether infection by the live virus can be blocked by the possible preventive treatment in concern,” Nikolich-Žugich said. “This must be carried out in specialized biosafety containment centers, so our long-time experience with this type of work and our biosafety center at BIO5 allowed us to help Dr. Vercelli and her group with this research study.”
Vercelli and Pivniouk likewise enlisted the help of Dr. Monica Kraft, the Robert and Irene Flinn Endowed Chair in the College of Medicine– Tucson, who collected primary lung cells from healthy clients.
The reasoning for using bacterial extracts to prevent viral infection associates with a previous research study led by Vercelli, who likewise is the director of the Arizona Center for the Biology of Complex Diseases. In 2016, her team discovered that exposure to ecological microbial products safeguarded Amish farm children from asthma and allergic reactions.
” Our natural body immune system has actually progressed under ecological pressures like germs, but our current way of lives often do not offer us the chance to develop this protective resistance,” Vercelli said. “Our concept is to utilize bacterial lysate to train our body immune system to protect us from viruses, in the exact same way those who are routinely exposed to farm animals are safeguarded against a wide range of germs and other microorganisms.”
According to Vercelli, treatment with bacterial lysates such as OM-85 might promote a more interactive exchange between the body immune system and microbes.
Reference: “The OM-85 bacterial lysate prevents SARS-CoV-2 infection of epithelial cells by downregulating SARS-CoV-2 receptor expression” by Vadim Pivniouk, PhD; Oksana Pivniouk, MA; Avery DeVries, PhD; Jennifer L. Uhrlaub, MS; Ashley Michael, BS; Denis Pivniouk, BS; Sydney R. VanLinden, BS; Michelle Y. Conway, BS; Seongmin Hahn, MS; Sean P. Malone; Peace Ezeh, PhD; Jared M. Churko, PhD; Dayna Anderson, BS; Monica Kraft, MD; Janko Nikolich-Zugich, MD, PhD and Donata Vercelli, MD, 9 December 2021, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.DOI: 10.1016/ j.jaci.2021.11.019.
This research study was supported in part by OM Pharma SA, and by the National Institutes of Healths National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (T32ES007091), National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (T32 HL007249, R25HL126140), and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (P01AI148104, R21AI144722).
Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH
Researchers from the UArizona College of Medicine– Tucson discovered that the bacterial lysate OM-85 obstructed SARS-CoV-2 infection by reducing the ability of the coronavirus to bind to the lung cell surface area receptor ACE2.
A group of University of Arizona Health Sciences researchers at the UArizona College of Medicine– Tucson found that a combination of bacterial extracts utilized in Europe to treat breathing infections may offer a new way to prevent or decrease infection by SARS-CoV-2, the infection that triggers COVID-19.
The research study, released in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, showed that a particular combination of bacterial extracts understood as OM-85 prevented SARS-CoV-2 infection by minimizing the viruss ability to connect to lung cells. OM-85 is a bacterial lysate, a mix of particles extracted from the cell walls of bacteria, marketed outside the U.S. under the brand Broncho-Vaxom as a preventive treatment for upper breathing infections in adults and kids.