A Possible Way to Relate the Effects of SARS-CoV-2-Induced Changes in Transferrin to Severe COVID-19-Associated Diseases

  1. Elek Telek
  2. Zoltán Ujfalusi
  3. Gábor Kemenesi
  4. Brigitta Zana
  5. Ferenc Jakab
  6. Gabriella Hild
  7. András Lukács
  8. Gábor Hild

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Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 infections are responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Transferrin has been found to explain the link between diseases associated with impaired iron transport and COVID-19 infection. The effect of SARS-CoV-2 on human whole blood was studied by differential scanning calorimetry. The analysis of the thermal transition curves showed that the melting temperature of the transferrin-related peak decreased in the presence of SARS-CoV-2. The ratio of the under-curve area of the two main peaks was greatly affected, while the total enthalpy of the heat denaturation remained nearly unchanged in the presence of the virus. These results indicate that SARS-CoV-2, through binding to transferrin, may influence its Fe3+ uptake by inducing thermodynamic changes. Therefore, transferrin may remain in an iron-free apo-conformational state, which depends on the SARS-CoV-2 concentration. SARS-CoV-2 can induce disturbance in erythropoiesis due to toxicity generated by free iron overload.

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  1. Version published to 10.3390/ijms23116189
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    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.15.480603: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: The applied procedures were approved by the Local Ethical Committee of the UP MS (Certificate No. 8549-PTE2020).
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    During the experimental procedure we used a Hungarian SARS-CoV-2 isolate (isolated on Vero E6 cells, GISAID accession ID: EPI_ISL_483637).
    Vero E6
    suggested: None

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2022.02.15.480603v1 on bioRxiv