The research team coordinated by Guido Antonelli of the Department of Molecular Medicine is participating together with the National Research Council in Pisa in a national study on pathogenicity markers of SARS-CoV-2 variants led by the University of Pisa and funded by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità.

The objectives are the identification of biomarkers of pathogenicity, the study of short- and long-term neuronal damage, and the characterisation of innate and adaptive host responses against the SARS-CoV-2 viral strain and its most representative variants.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the clinical presentation of the disease shifted from a severe form of pneumonia to a better-tolerated multi-organ infection, a change that could be attributable to several factors - including increased knowledge of the disease and the success of vaccination - but which also leaves room for the hypothesis that virus adaptation may have played a role, as it tried to evade vaccine immunity by improving transmissibility at the expense of virulence.

The study will be conducted in a murine animal model and will make it possible to compare different viral and host factors to define the pathogenicity of the different variants, without interference, thus laying the foundations for the development of therapeutic and preventive approaches targeting the latest SARS-CoV-2 variants.

In particular, the group from Sapienza University of Rome - comprising, alongside Guido Antonelli, Carolina Scagnolari and Matteo Fracella, both from the Department of Molecular Medicine - will characterise the innate immune response to the infection sustained by the different variants of SARS-CoV-2, with particular reference to the role played by the interferon system in the natural history of the infection.

Further Information

Guido Antonelli 
Department of Molecular Medicine
guido.antonelli@uniroma1.it