id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
cord-325324-kh2aal5n	Teng, Shaolei	ACE2 Enhance Viral Infection or Viral Infection Aggravate the Underlying Diseases	2020-08-06		.txt	text/plain	4403	274	53	SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (S) is cleaved by the human furin enzyme to generate S1, which binds to the host receptor, ACE-2. It is possible that the released free spike or the cleaved S1 protein in the blood might bind to cellular membrane ACE2 of heart, artery and alveolar lung cells to block the conversion of Angiotensin II to Ang-(1-7) and/or Angiotensin I to Ang-(1-9), which is consistent with a previous experimental result on SARS-CoV-1 (59) . Therefore, our hypothesis, as shown in the right side of Fig. 1 as "Viral aggravating existing diseases", is that comorbidities in COVID-19 patients are aggravated by the infection of SARS-CoV-2 to causes higher fatalities because the viral S protein interacts with ACE2 to inhibit ACE2 function. The claims that COVID-19 disproportionately affects the individuals of minority groups and aged people are not only supported by reported data but also by our hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 infection generates spike protein that interacts with ACE2 to either exhaust ACE2 or inhibit ACE2 function or both so that the comorbidities are aggravated (Figure 1 ).	./cache/cord-325324-kh2aal5n.txt	./txt/cord-325324-kh2aal5n.txt