A new cell study suggests that COVID-19 proteins can bring long-term gene expression changes which would explain why some suffer from long-haulers. COVID-19 is covered in “tiny spike proteins” and during infection, the spike proteins bind with receptors on the cells in patients’ bodies. This begins the process if the virus to release it’s “genetic material” into the inside of the healthy cell.
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center discovered that exposure to COVID-19 protein alone was enough to change baseline gene expression in airway cells. Researchers found that cultured human airways exposed differentiated in gene expression long after and recovered from exposure and this also included the inflammatory response.