Neurotropism of SARS-CoV-2: Possible impacts of COVID-19 in patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v10i7.16441

Keywords:

Neurological alterations; Neuromuscular diseases; Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; SARS-CoV-2; Inflammation.

Abstract

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a degenerative neuromuscular disease that affects the upper and lower motor neurons. The state of motor and functional impairment resulting from the progression of the disease exposes them to a possibly fatal risk in the case of infection by SARS-CoV-2, especially due to the severe pulmonary involvement, characteristic of the advancement of the degenerative pathology in question. In this review, we list the main associative mechanisms between the disease and COVID-19, highlighting, mainly, the neuroinvasive viral aspects. The study is a qualitative descriptive research, carried out through a narrative review of the literature. The literature on the new coronavirus has demonstrated the viral neuroinvasion and neurotropic capacity of SARS-CoV-2. Currently, the evidence proves that infection is not restricted to the respiratory tract, which is the primary site of the infection. Based on the findings, it is proposed that there are three viable scenarios on the impact of SARS-CoV-2 and neuroinvasion: (1) direct induction of neurological changes; (2) worsening of previously installed neurological conditions; and (3) increased susceptibility or deterioration of damage caused by other injuries, in this case, considering ALS patients. It is concluded that there is a possibility of a latent period of SARS-CoV-2 in the CNS. Thus, it is crucial to observe subsequent neurological symptoms in the individual, resulting from viral reactivation, resulting in continuous progression of the neuroinflammatory processes associated with ALS. The neuroinvasive and neurotropic capacities of the virus must also be observed in the long term to elucidate whether neurodegenerative diseases, such as ALS, confer direct vulnerability to COVID-19.

Author Biography

Rodrigo da Silva Santos, Universidade Federal de Goiás

Biólogo Geneticista com Doutorado em Genética pela Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto da Universidade de São Paulo (FMRP-USP). Professor Adjunto do Departamento de Bioquímica e Biologia Molecular do Instituto de Ciências Biológicas da Universidade Federal de Goiás (DBBM-ICB-UFG).

References

Ajroud-Driss, S., & Siddique, T. (2015). Sporadic and hereditary amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular Basis of Disease, 1852(4), 679–684. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbadis.2014.08.010

Bohmwald, K., Gálvez, N. M. S., Ríos, M., & Kalergis, A. M. (2018). Neurologic Alterations Due to Respiratory Virus Infections. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, 12(October), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2018.00386

Carod Artal, F. J. (2020). Complicaciones neurológicas por coronavirus y COVID-19. Revista de Neurología, 70(09), 311. https://doi.org/10.33588/rn.7009.2020179

Chia, R., Chiò, A., & Traynor, B. J. (2018). Novel genes associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: diagnostic and clinical implications. In The Lancet Neurology (Vol. 17, Issue 1, pp. 94–102). Lancet Publishing Group. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(17)30401-5

Correia, A. O., Feitosa, P. W. G., Moreira, J. L. de S., Nogueira, S. Á. R., Fonseca, R. B., & Nobre, M. E. P. (2020). Neurological manifestations of COVID-19 and other coronaviruses: A systematic review. Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research, 37(January), 27–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.npbr.2020.05.008

Crepaldi, M. A., Schmidt, B., Noal, D. da S., Bolze, S. D. A., & Gabarra, L. M. (2020). Terminalidade, morte e luto na pandemia de COVID-19: demandas psicológicas emergentes e implicações práticas. Estudos de Psicologia (Campinas), 37, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-0275202037e200090

Das, G., Mukherjee, N., & Ghosh, S. (2020). Neurological Insights of COVID-19 Pandemic. ACS Chemical Neuroscience, 11(9), 1206–1209. https://doi.org/10.1021/acschemneuro.0c00201

De Felice, F. G., Tovar-Moll, F., Moll, J., Munoz, D. P., & Ferreira, S. T. (2020). Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the Central Nervous System. Trends in Neurosciences, 43(6), 355–357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2020.04.004

Filatov, A., Sharma, P., Hindi, F., & Espinosa, P. S. (2020). Neurological Complications of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): Encephalopathy. Cureus, 12(3). https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.7352

Gorbalenya, A. E., Baker, S. C., Baric, R. S., de Groot, R. J., Drosten, C., Gulyaeva, A. A., Haagmans, B. L., Lauber, C., Leontovich, A. M., Neuman, B. W., Penzar, D., Perlman, S., Poon, L. L. M., Samborskiy, D. V., Sidorov, I. A., Sola, I., & Ziebuhr, J. (2020). The species Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus: classifying 2019-nCoV and naming it SARS-CoV-2. Nature Microbiology, 5(4), 536–544. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-020-0695-z

Guidon, A. C., & Amato, A. A. (2020). COVID-19 and neuromuscular disorders. Neurology, 94(22), 959–969. https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000009566

Hardiman, O., Al-Chalabi, A., Chio, A., Corr, E. M., Logroscino, G., Robberecht, W., Shaw, P. J., Simmons, Z., & van den Berg, L. H. (2017). Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Nature Reviews Disease Primers, 3(1), 17071. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrdp.2017.71

Li, M.-Y., Li, L., Zhang, Y., & Wang, X. (2020). Expression of the SARS-CoV-2 cell receptor gene ACE2 in a wide variety of human tissues. Infectious Diseases of Poverty, 9(1), 45. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40249-020-00662-x

Li, Y., Bai, W., & Hashikawa, T. (2020). The neuroinvasive potential of SARS‐CoV2 may play a role in the respiratory failure of COVID‐19 patients. Journal of Medical Virology, 92(6), 552–555. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.25728

Lippi, A., Domingues, R., Setz, C., Outeiro, T. F., & Krisko, A. (2020). SARS-CoV-2: At the Crossroad Between Aging and Neurodegeneration. Movement Disorders, 35(5), 716–720. https://doi.org/10.1002/mds.28084

Mehra, M. R., Desai, S. S., Ruschitzka, F., & Patel, A. N. (2020). RETRACTED: Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis. The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31180-6

Meinhardt, J., Radke, J., Dittmayer, C., Franz, J., Thomas, C., Mothes, R., Laue, M., Schneider, J., Brünink, S., Greuel, S., Lehmann, M., Hassan, O., Aschman, T., Schumann, E., Chua, R. L., Conrad, C., Eils, R., Stenzel, W., Windgassen, M., … Heppner, F. L. (2021). Olfactory transmucosal SARS-CoV-2 invasion as a port of central nervous system entry in individuals with COVID-19. Nature Neuroscience, 24(2), 168–175. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-020-00758-5

Mejzini, R., Flynn, L. L., Pitout, I. L., Fletcher, S., Wilton, S. D., & Akkari, P. A. (2019). ALS Genetics, Mechanisms, and Therapeutics: Where Are We Now? In Frontiers in Neuroscience (Vol. 13). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.01310

Montalvan, V., Lee, J., Bueso, T., De Toledo, J., & Rivas, K. (2020). Neurological manifestations of COVID-19 and other coronavirus infections: A systematic review. Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery, 194(January), 105921. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clineuro.2020.105921

Oh, J., & Kim, J. A. (2017). Supportive care needs of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/motor neuron disease and their caregivers: A scoping review. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 26(23–24), 4129–4152. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.13945

Oskarsson, B., Gendron, T. F., & Staff, N. P. (2018). Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: An Update for 2018. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 93, Issue 11). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2018.04.007

Prado, L. de G. R., Vieira, É. L. M., Rocha, N. P., Prado, V. de G. R., Souza, L. C. de, & Teixeira, A. L. (2018). Neuroinflamação Na Esclerose Lateral Amiotrófica. Revista Brasileira de Neurologia, 54(3), 22–27.

Serrano-Castro, P. J., Estivill-Torrús, G., Cabezudo-García, P., Reyes-Bueno, J. A., Ciano Petersen, N., Aguilar-Castillo, M. J., Suárez-Pérez, J., Jiménez-Hernández, M. D., Moya-Molina, M. Á., Oliver-Martos, B., Arrabal-Gómez, C., & Rodríguez de Fonseca, F. (2020). Impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases: A delayed pandemic? Neurología (English Edition), 35(4), 245–251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nrleng.2020.04.002

Taylor, J. P., Brown, R. H., & Cleveland, D. W. (2016). Decoding ALS: from genes to mechanism. Nature, 539(7628), 197–206. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature20413

Tipton, P. W., & Wszolek, Z. K. (2020). What can Parkinson’s disease teach us about COVID-19? Neurologia i Neurochirurgia Polska, 368(2), m1091. https://doi.org/10.5603/PJNNS.a2020.0039

Toljan, K. (2020). Letter to the Editor Regarding the Viewpoint “Evidence of the COVID-19 Virus Targeting the CNS: Tissue Distribution, Host–Virus Interaction, and Proposed Neurotropic Mechanism” [Article-commentary]. ACS Chemical Neuroscience, 11(8), 1192–1194. https://doi.org/10.1021/acschemneuro.0c00174

van Doremalen, N., Bushmaker, T., Morris, D. H., Holbrook, M. G., Gamble, A., Williamson, B. N., Tamin, A., Harcourt, J. L., Thornburg, N. J., Gerber, S. I., Lloyd-Smith, J. O., de Wit, E., & Munster, V. J. (2020). Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1. New England Journal of Medicine, 382(16), 1564–1567. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc2004973

van Es, M. A., Hardiman, O., Chio, A., Al-Chalabi, A., Pasterkamp, R. J., Veldink, J. H., & van den Berg, L. H. (2017). Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The Lancet, 390(10107), 2084–2098. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31287-4

Walhout, R., Verstraete, E., van den Heuvel, M. P., Veldink, J. H., & van den Berg, L. H. (2018). Patterns of symptom development in patients with motor neuron disease. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration, 19(1–2), 21–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/21678421.2017.1386688

Wilson, M. P., & Jack, A. S. (2020). Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in neurology and neurosurgery: A scoping review of the early literature. Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery, 193(April), 105866. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clineuro.2020.105866

Yang, Y., Shang, W., & Rao, X. (2020). Facing the COVID‐19 outbreak: What should we know and what could we do? Journal of Medical Virology, 92(6), 536–537. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.25720

Yashavantha Rao, H. C., & Jayabaskaran, C. (2020). The emergence of a novel coronavirus (SARS‐CoV‐2) disease and their neuroinvasive propensity may affect in COVID‐19 patients. Journal of Medical Virology, 92(7), 786–790. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.25918

Zhou, Z., Kang, H., Li, S., & Zhao, X. (2020). Understanding the neurotropic characteristics of SARS-CoV-2: from neurological manifestations of COVID-19 to potential neurotropic mechanisms. Journal of Neurology, 267(8), 2179–2184. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-020-09929-7

Zhu, N., Zhang, D., Wang, W., Li, X., Yang, B., Song, J., Zhao, X., Huang, B., Shi, W., Lu, R., Niu, P., Zhan, F., Ma, X., Wang, D., Xu, W., Wu, G., Gao, G. F., & Tan, W. (2020). A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China, 2019. New England Journal of Medicine, 382(8), 727–733. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa2001017

Published

21/06/2021

How to Cite

LIMA, N. S. de .; COSTA, C. C. P. da .; REIS, A. A. da S. .; SANTOS, R. da S. . Neurotropism of SARS-CoV-2: Possible impacts of COVID-19 in patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis . Research, Society and Development, [S. l.], v. 10, n. 7, p. e28310716441, 2021. DOI: 10.33448/rsd-v10i7.16441. Disponível em: https://rsdjournal.org/index.php/rsd/article/view/16441. Acesso em: 22 nov. 2024.

Issue

Section

Health Sciences