Brazilian scientists have come to the conclusion that the salivary glands are the reservoir for the spread of coronavirus infection in the human body. This is stated in a scientific article published in The Journal of Pathology.
The researchers analyzed samples of three types of salivary glands (parotid, submandibular, and small) from adult patients who died from COVID-19. As a result, they concluded that it is the tissues responsible for the production and secretion of saliva that serve as reservoirs for infection. Scientists have observed not only the presence of the pathogen, but also its replication in cells.
According to one of the study's authors, Bruno Fernandez Matuca, this discovery may help explain why SARS-CoV-2 is so highly infectious. It was previously thought that only viruses that cause common diseases such as herpes use the salivary glands as reservoirs.
In June, scientists at the University of Washington in St. Louis determined that SARS-CoV-2 is able to find alternative ways of infecting human cells, even if they lack the angiotensin-converting enzyme ACE2, the receptor that serves as the entry point of the virus into the cell. In particular, it became known that due to the next mutation, the virus is able to infect initially resistant to it cells of human adenocarcinoma H522.
Earlier, researchers recognized that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus already in the early stages of the pandemic had a high adaptability to human cells, which distinguishes it from other zoonotic viruses.
