By Cristina D’Imperio
Women often experience a more severe infection from certain respiratory viruses, such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2, which also leads to higher mortality rates from these infections.
Researchers have found that immune responses during infection, specifically the speed and magnitude of the reaction of molecules and cells to the virus, differ between women and men. These responses have been linked to the sex hormone estradiol.
Jason E. Shoemaker, PhD, McGowan affiliated faculty, and Associate Professor, Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, at the University of Pittsburgh, is the Principal Investigator (PI) on a project that studies the role of estradiol in the replication of respiratory viruses. His ongoing work has received additional funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Dr. Shoemaker and researchers at his lab are investigating the ways in which different respiratory viruses use molecular pathways to promote infection and alter immune activity, as well as link estradiol activity to virus replication.
The project narrative states:
Many of the key pathways that allow different respiratory viruses to induce greater disease or that link important molecules, such as hormones, to respiratory virus infection remain unknown. The proposed research program will leverage recently developed bioinformatics algorithms and existing public datasets to identify new pathways that influenza and SARS-CoV-2 viruses exploit and pathways linking infection to hormone activity. Completion of the study will help in identifying new candidate therapeutic targets for treating respiratory infection.
The full abstract of the study, titled “Leveraging Leveraging Pathogen-Host Networks to Identify Virus-specific and Estradiol-regulated Mechanisms during Respiratory Infection,” can be found here.
Visit Dr. Shoemaker’s Immunosystems Lab here.