Galician researchers find evidence of a relationship between covid and cancer

The study explains why covid could be a risk factor for developing cancer People infected with SARS-CoV-2 have a low presence of p53, a protein that is oncosuppressive This does not demonstrate a direct causal relationship between the two diseases, but it forces do more studiesIs covid a risk factor for developing an oncological disease? That is the question that a group of Galician researchers asked themselves and the starting point of a study that has found molecular evidence of a genetic relationship between the coronavirus and cancer. This research, carried out by the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and the Health Research Institute (IDIS) in collaboration with Imperial College London, has focused on seeing how a tumor suppressor protein responds to SARS-CoV-2 : p53. For this, three studies were carried out with healthy and SARS-CoV-2 infected patients stratified according to their severity, from critically ill, to severe, mild and healthy people. They were followed up at 12, 16 and 24 weeks, after having overcome the coronavirus infection. p53, a protein ‘hijacked’ by SARS-CoV-2In these analyses, the researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 antigens ‘hijack’ the oncosuppressive protein p53, leading to its degeneration due to oxidative damage. According to the research, SARS-CoV-2 would take advantage of the pathways controlled by p53 during the infection phase, bypassing immune responses. During the study, evidence was obtained that patients in the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 and those with long-term infection (known as persistent Covid) show a low presence of p53. The researchers defend that the long-term inhibition of p53 by SARS-CoV-2 could be a carcinogenic risk factor. “This does not demonstrate a causal relationship between SARS-CoV 2 and cancer, but in the event that larger sample and extensive follow-up studies can confirm it, the impact on global public health would be enormous,” the researchers explain, among which is the geneticist Antonio Salas and the clinical researcher Federico Martinón. More studies are needed The research, published in the Journal of Infection, the magazine of the British Association of Infections, supports the thesis that Chinese scientists exposed in that same magazine previously. Those researchers had linked SARS-CoV-2 and severe endometrial cancer. “Our evidence originates from the realm of gene expression, what we call transcriptomics. The fact that we found converging evidence in three independent studies lays a solid enough base to start studies in the clinical and epidemiological field that allow shedding light on this possible link”, defend these Galician researchers. The team agrees that more research is needed. “The study concludes that SARS-CoV-2 could become a risk factor, as are many other factors in various types of cancer, from genetic mutations to environmental factors,” they maintain. They believe that it is necessary to carry out larger studies to see if the p53 protein alterations persist over time and if in patients it may be related to the subsequent development of some type of cancer. Because of the huge impact this could have on public health, they hope they are wrong.