{"id":243154,"date":"2026-08-25T01:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T06:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/blood-clotting-protein-may-be-sars-cov-2s-hidden-accomplice-helping-it-hide-from-antibodies-and-reach-blood-vessels"},"modified":"2026-08-25T01:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T06:30:19","slug":"blood-clotting-protein-may-be-sars-cov-2s-hidden-accomplice-helping-it-hide-from-antibodies-and-reach-blood-vessels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/blood-clotting-protein-may-be-sars-cov-2s-hidden-accomplice-helping-it-hide-from-antibodies-and-reach-blood-vessels","title":{"rendered":"Blood-clotting protein may be SARS-CoV-2\u2019s hidden accomplice, helping it hide from antibodies and reach blood vessels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/blood-clotting-protein-may-be-sars-cov-2s-hidden-accomplice-helping-it-hide-from-antibodies-and-reach-blood-vessels.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Fibrinogen, the abundant plasma protein best known for forming blood clots, may play a second and far less benign role during SARS-CoV-2 infection: acting as a molecular bridge that simultaneously hides the virus from neutralizing antibodies and delivers it to the cells lining blood vessels.<\/p>\n<p>That is the hypothesis put forward by Saroj Kumar Panda (Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Texas at Arlington), Shashi Singh, and Parth Sarthi Sen Gupta (School of Biosciences and Bioengineering, D Y Patil International University, Pune) in a Viewpoint article <a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/aptsfn\/article\/doi\/10.1021\/acsptsci.6c00452\/5255000\/Fibrinogen-as-a-Molecular-Bridge-Linking-SARS-CoV\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in ACS Pharmacology &amp; Translational Science.<\/p>\n<p>The proposal offers a single mechanistic explanation for two features of COVID-19 that have long been treated as separate problems: the virus\u2019s ability to evade immunity and the vascular damage, microclotting and inflammation that characterize severe disease and long COVID.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fibrinogen, the abundant plasma protein best known for forming blood clots, may play a second and far less benign role during SARS-CoV-2 infection: acting as a molecular bridge that simultaneously hides the virus from neutralizing antibodies and delivers it to the cells lining blood vessels. That is the hypothesis put forward by Saroj Kumar Panda [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}