Molecular Mechanisms of Endothelialitis in SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Evidence for VE-Cadherin Cleavage by ACE2.
Laurence BouilletAlban DerouxMeryem BenmarceChloé GuérinLaura BouvetOlivia GarnierDonald K MartinIsabelle VilgrainPublished in: International journal of molecular sciences (2023)
Long COVID-19 syndrome appears after Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus (SARS-CoV-2) infection with acute damage to microcapillaries, microthrombi, and endothelialitis. However, the mechanisms involved in these processes remain to be elucidated. All blood vessels are lined with a monolayer of endothelial cells called vascular endothelium, which provides a the major function is to prevent coagulation. A component of endothelial cell junctions is VE-cadherin, which is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the vessels through homophilic interactions of its Ca ++ -dependent adhesive extracellular domain. Here we provide the first evidence that VE-cadherin is a target in vitro for ACE2 cleavage because its extracellular domain (hrVE-ED) contains two amino acid sequences for ACE2 substrate recognition at the positions 256 P-F 257 and 321 PMKP- 325 L. Indeed, incubation of hrVE-ED with the active ectopeptidase hrACE2 for 16 hrs in the presence of 10 μM ZnCl 2 showed a dose-dependent (from 0.2 ng/μL to 2 ng/μL) decrease of the VE-cadherin immunoreactive band. In vivo, in the blood from patients having severe COVID-19 we detected a circulating form of ACE2 with an apparent molecular mass of 70 kDa, which was barely detectable in patients with mild COVID-19. Of importance, in the patients with severe COVID-19 disease, the presence of three soluble fragments of VE-cadherin (70, 62, 54 kDa) were detected using the antiEC1 antibody while only the 54 kDa fragment was present in patients with mild disease. Altogether, these data clearly support a role for ACE2 to cleave VE-cadherin, which leads to potential biomarkers of SARS-CoV-2 infection related with the vascular disease in "Long COVID-19".
Keyphrases
- coronavirus disease
- sars cov
- respiratory syndrome coronavirus
- endothelial cells
- angiotensin converting enzyme
- angiotensin ii
- cell adhesion
- cell migration
- emergency department
- amino acid
- end stage renal disease
- heat shock protein
- liver failure
- ejection fraction
- drug induced
- nitric oxide
- oxidative stress
- magnetic resonance
- magnetic resonance imaging
- respiratory failure
- patient reported
- acute respiratory distress syndrome
- extracorporeal membrane oxygenation
- diffusion weighted imaging