COIMBATORE: At a time when scientists across the globe are researching to develop vaccines to cure Covid, a team of multidisciplinary researchers has come out with a medical hypothesis that platelets could be a reason for lung inflammation in infected patients.
The alumni of researchers under the guidance of K Sasikala, former head of Zoology department and specialisation in Human Genetics & Molecular Biology in Bharathiar University, currently working in different countries, came together with a mission – search for drugs that could fight the infection.
Similarly, the hypothesis titled 'Platelets to surrogate lung inflammation in COVID-19 patients' published by the same team in the letter to the editor column in an ELSEVIER journal suggests that trials are required to assess the direct interaction of virus-platelets in the host.
"By observing reasons for lung inflammation, we predicted that platelets are the ones leading to the condition. CD13 (Human receptor) and HCoV-229E strains are 82 percent similar to SARS-Cov-2, shares similar function to intake virus," said Haripriya Kuchi Bhotla (Department of Medicine, University of Perugia, Italy) - specialisation in a dedicated lab for Platelet Disease Biology, one of the main authors of the hypothesis.
Another author, Murugesh Easwaran said the virus or bacteria is not the sole reason for a person to get infected. "The defence mechanism in one’s body would have supported it," he said.
However, he said the vaccine/drug might need many clinical and diagnostic factors to achieve its goal as the virulence of Covid-19 is unstable. If the pandemic sustains for another year or two, the vaccine could be devised based on community, he added.
The mainstream authors are Arun Meyyazhagan, Tanushri Kaul, Balamuralikrishnan B, Manikantan P, Saravanan M and Vijay Anand A.