There are a lot of questions one can ask about COVID, from where it came to the effects it will have on people. However, we know only for sure that more things will be revealed as time passes. One of the new reports, however, seems to be a disturbing bit of information in a study reported on by Nature.com, where it says that having COVID seems to be linked to infertility and sterility, particularly in men.
To further characterize changes in the transcriptome upon SARS-CoV-2 infection in the testes, we performed Gene Ontology term analysis of the differentially regulated genes. Consistent with our virus RNA detection and IHC results, the upregulated transcripts were significantly enriched in terms related to virus invasion, such as “viral gene expression” and “viral life cycle” (Supplementary Fig. S4b). Importantly, some inflammation-related processes were activated, including the “interleukin-6-mediated signaling pathway” and “regulation of B-cell proliferation”. Consistent with our histological results (Fig. 1a), the downregulated genes were significantly enriched in “spermatogenesis” and “reproduction” (Supplementary Fig. S4c), further illustrating the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on male fertility. Moreover, we found 32 inflammatory cytokines to be considerably upregulated, with a P value < 0.05 and fold change > 2, in COVID-19 patient testes, and 10 of these cytokines (CMTM6, FAM3C, INHBA, IL33, TNFSF10, NAMPT, CMTM4, CCL28, IL2, and TIMP1) were significantly upregulated with an FDR < 0.001 (Supplementary Fig. S4d). These bioinformatics data suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infection may lead to dysfunction of the genes that regulate spermatogenesis and inflammation-related pathways, thereby causing inflammatory immune attack in the testes and defects in spermatogenesis.
Collectively, our findings provide direct evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can infect the testis and GCs, indicating the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on spermatogenesis and male fertility. Nevertheless, further study is essential to reveal the underlying mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 infection of testicular cells and the correlation of testis infection with the clinical course of COVID-19. (source)
It is an interesting find, and while more information about this has yet to come out, a trend to watch for in the future from this is not just the development of ‘weaponized’ germs, but germs that specifically attack the reproductive system, thus not killing an enemy, but preventing his ability to reproduce, and thus destroying him long-term. However, since it is known that no disease is easily controlled, that in the name of ‘national defense’ some countries may do thinks with a short-term idea that have permanent, long-term consequences that eventually come back upon them worse than what they intended to inflict upon their enemies.
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