id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
cord-270474-jaurhjvr	Xiang, Zhen	Glucocorticoids improve severe or critical COVID-19 by activating ACE2 and reducing IL-6 levels	2020-06-27		.txt	text/plain	4417	258	46	We verified the efficacy of nine chemicals on regulating ACE2 expression in human GES-1, an upper digestive tract epithelial cell line, and THP-1, a human monocyte cell line, and found that several glucocorticoids imparted activating effects on ACE2 in both cell lines. We retrospectively analyzed the therapeutic efficacy of nine severe or critical patients from a cohort of 90 COVID-19 cases, who received medium to small doses of glucocorticoids from our integrated medical team in Wuhan. This study provides experimental and clinical evidence that medium-to-low-dose glucocorticoids may play a protective role in the respiratory and digestive systems by activating ACE2 and suppressing cytokine storm. Because the epithelial cells of the respiratory and digestive tracts are susceptible targets of SARS-CoV-2, we verified the regulatory effects of several candidate agonists of ACE2 expression on available normal human epithelial cells. Compared to the blank control, hydrocortisone revealed the strongest activating effect on ACE2 expression, followed by prednisolone, dexamethasone, and methylprednisolone.	./cache/cord-270474-jaurhjvr.txt	./txt/cord-270474-jaurhjvr.txt