Imagine being infected with a deadly virus that makes you impervious to pain. By the time you realize you are infected, it’s already too late. You have spread it far and wide. Recent findings in my lab suggest that this scenario may be one reason that people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19, may be spreading the disease without knowing it.
Most accounts to date have focused on how the virus invades cells via the ACE2 protein on the surface of many cells. But recent studies, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, suggest there is another route to infecting the cell that enables it to infect the nervous system. This led my research group to uncover a link between a particular cellular protein and pain – an interaction that is disrupted by the coronavirus. Our research has now been peer-reviewed and will be published in the journal PAIN.
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