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There are lots of viruses coexisting with us in our bodies. Many seem harmless others beneficial eg they produce useful proteins.
viral proteins after virus particles leave an infected cell and from viral proteins secreted from infected cells or released when viral numbers rupture infected cells
viral proteins secreted from infected cells
What looks like the immune system attacking its own cells in multiple organs is more precisely the immune system attacking some of cells hosting benign viruses.
Evan, you make Jolly2 look well informed.
What looks like the immune system attacking its own cells in multiple organs really is the immune system attacking infected ACE2 cells, which occur in every organ.
This is just an idea - it may well be a load of rubbish but there may be something in it. There are lots of viruses coexisting with us in our bodies. Many seem harmless others beneficial eg they produce useful proteins. All of them, along with the nasty ones have to contend with an immune system trying to eliminate them. There are numerous strategies that they use. I'll just look at one, which the literature tells us is one of the ones CoV2 uses. A human cell invaded by a virus presents viral proteins on it's surface to attract the attention of white blood cells to its plight. CoV2 codes for a protein which hitches a ride into the nucleus where it downgrades the protein presenting response. The immune system does encounter the viral proteins after virus particles leave an infected celland from viral proeins secreted from infected cells or released when viral numbers rupture infected cells, so it can fight and eliminate the infection, which is what hapens with most people. But for some, the immune system goes a step further. It's fighting the virus but it can't find infected cells - because they aren't presenting viral proteins on their surface. So cytokines are released to up-regulate the protein presenting mechanism. This is when the trouble starts. Because, among the peacefully cohabiting proteins, there will be plenty which use the same tactic as CoV2 to stay safe. Suddenly their proteins are being presented on cell surfaces and the immune system thinks cells all over the body are under attack by viruses, and the cytokine storm kicks off. What looks like the immune system attacking its own cells in multiple organs is more precisely the immune system attacking some of cells hosting benign viruses.That's just a likely example, a similar line of reasoning could be used for other anti-immune mechanisms employed by CoV2 such as suppressing interferon production or preventing apoptosis.