evACE2 Nanobubbles in Blood: Curbs Coronavirus, Research Finds

February 11, 2022

As the coronavirus pandemic persists into 2022, medical experts are pressed to discover options for treating Covid-19. According to scientists at Northwestern Medicine and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, natural nanobubbles containing the ACE2 protein (evACE2) in the blood of COVID-19 patients have been found as one possible cure. In preclinical experiments, they discovered that these nanoparticles could prevent infection from a wide range of SARS-CoV-2 virus strains.

The researchers distinguished that the evACE2 functions as a decoy in the body and might be used as a therapy for the prevention and treatment of existing and future SARS-CoV-2 strains, as well as future coronaviruses. This is said to be the first research to demonstrate how evACE2 proteins can combat novel SARS-CoV-2 variants with the same or higher efficacy rather than inhibiting the original strain. The researchers also stated that these evACE2 nanobubbles were detected in human blood as a natural anti-viral response. They added that the more serious the condition, the higher the amounts of evACE2 are present in the patient's blood. These can be advantageous as a biological treatment with less lethality once established as a therapeutic product, either as a nasal spray or injectable that “delivers to the airway via droplets.”

Co-senior author Dr. Raghu Kalluri, chair of cancer biology at MD Anderson, remarked that this was “a way to harness this natural defense as a new potential therapy against this devastating virus." Likewise, Dr. Huiping Liu, a Northwestern Medicine physician and associate professor of pharmacology and medicine and the study’s co-senior, believes that this finding “can meet the challenges and fight against broad strains of SARS-CoV-2 and future emerging coronaviruses to protect the immunocompromised, unvaccinated and even vaccinated from breakthrough infections.”

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