THE EFFECT OF OF SARS-COV-2 NUCLEOCAPSID PROTEIN ON IL-6 CYTOKINE RELEASE FROM GLIAL CELLS

Abstract

Since 2019 the world has experienced global pandemics of COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2, resulting in the transmission of the disease to hundreds of millions of people all around the globe. To this day the majority of mechanisms by which virus disseminates and proliferates inside the cells, leading to severe cases of disease are not known. Despite the fact that COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, 30% of the patients in acute stages of disease show numerous neurological symptoms, including headache, anosmia, and ageusia implementing that viral cells have a serious effect on the CNS probably by inducing cytokine release syndrome and leading to cytokine storm as in other tissues. Glial cells are of a particular interest as they are the major source of inflammatory cytokines in the nervous system. It was found in the previous research that a structural protein of SARS-CoV-2, particularly nucleocapsid (N) protein, induces the release of numerous cytokines from alveolar cells, macrophages, and monocytes. IL-6 is one of the major inflammatory particles released from types of cells studied before, during the cytokine storm, and it was shown that it might lead to the severe neurological response. Previous studies also showed that alveolar cells and macrophages release IL-6 when transfected with or cultured in the presence of N protein. The main goal of this research is to identify the effect of the SARS-CoV-2 N protein on the release of IL-6 from U-87 MG glial cells by culturing the cells in its presence. The results are then interpreted by using supernatants of treated cells for dot-blot assay, ELISA, and qRT-PCR.