South China Morning Post reports:

The coronavirus that causes Covid-19 could kill the powerful immune cells that are supposed to kill the virus instead, scientists have warned.

The surprise discovery, made by a team of researchers from Shanghai and New York, coincided with frontline doctors’ observation that Covid-19 could attack the human immune system and cause damages similar to that found in HIV patients.

Lu Lu, from Fudan University in Shanghai, and Jang Shibo, from the New York Blood Centre, joined the living virus, which is officially known as Sars-CoV-2, on laboratory-grown T lymphocyte cell lines.

T lymphocytes, also known as T cells, play a central role in identifying and eliminating alien invaders in the body.

They do this by capturing a cell infected by a virus, bore a hole in its membrane and inject toxic chemicals into the cell. These chemicals then kill both the virus and infected cell and tear them to pieces.

To the surprise of the scientists, the T cell became a prey to the coronavirus in their experiment. They found a unique structure in the virus’s spike protein that appeared to have triggered the fusion of a viral envelope and cell membrane when they came into contact.

The virus’s genes then entered the T cell and took it hostage, disabling its function of protecting humans. [Continue reading…]