The study, which was published in The Lancet in April, demonstrates that endothelial cells — that is, cells which form the barrier between blood vessels and organ tissues and control the transmission of fluids between the two — are involved in various health problems associated with the coronavirus. They observed this in multiple patients with COVID-19. One patient, a 71-year-old man who had had a kidney transplant, died of multisystem organ failure after being diagnosed with COVID-19, and a subsequent analysis of his transplanted kidney found that viral inclusion structures were in his endothelial cells. They also found inflammatory cells associated with endothelial cells in his heart, small bowel and lungs. [...]
As the researchers write, "the development "of this disease seems to be that it utilizes the ACE2 receptors as an entry way to a range of cells causing destruction.. . . This explains why the disease has such a variety of presentations and makes it potentially more dangerous," they continue. ACE2 receptors refers to a specific protein that allows coronavirus to infect human cells. [...]
Prior to this study, scientists were baffled as to why blood clots were a common symptom of the coronavirus. The clots alone were not what confused them, but also the fact that blood thinners did not seem to prevent them and people would die of strokes caused by brain blockages. As of last month, one report found that up to 30 percent of patients who are seriously ill with the coronavirus develop blood clots that become dangerous.
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