Di Natale Concetta, La Manna Sara, De Benedictis Ilaria, Brandi Paola, Marasco Daniela
Department of Pharmacy, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.
Center for Advanced Biomaterial for Health Care (CABHC), Istituto Italiano Di Tecnologia, Naples, Italy.
Front Pharmacol. 2020 Dec 3;11:578382. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2020.578382. eCollection 2020.
At the end of December 2019, an epidemic form of respiratory tract infection now named COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan, China. It is caused by a newly identified viral pathogen, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which can cause severe pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome. On January 30, 2020, due to the rapid spread of infection, COVID-19 was declared as a global health emergency by the World Health Organization. Coronaviruses are enveloped RNA viruses belonging to the family of Coronaviridae, which are able to infect birds, humans and other mammals. The majority of human coronavirus infections are mild although already in 2003 and in 2012, the epidemics of SARS-CoV and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), respectively, were characterized by a high mortality rate. In this regard, many efforts have been made to develop therapeutic strategies against human CoV infections but, unfortunately, drug candidates have shown efficacy only into studies, limiting their use against COVID-19 infection. Actually, no treatment has been approved in humans against SARS-CoV-2, and therefore there is an urgent need of a suitable vaccine to tackle this health issue. However, the puzzled scenario of biological features of the virus and its interaction with human immune response, represent a challenge for vaccine development. As expected, in hundreds of research laboratories there is a running out of breath to explore different strategies to obtain a safe and quickly spreadable vaccine; and among others, the peptide-based approach represents a turning point as peptides have demonstrated unique features of selectivity and specificity toward specific targets. Peptide-based vaccines imply the identification of different epitopes both on human cells and virus capsid and the design of peptide/peptidomimetics able to counteract the primary host-pathogen interaction, in order to induce a specific host immune response. SARS-CoV-2 immunogenic regions are mainly distributed, as well as for other coronaviruses, across structural areas such as spike, envelope, membrane or nucleocapsid proteins. Herein, we aim to highlight the molecular basis of the infection and recent peptide-based vaccines strategies to fight the COVID-19 pandemic including their delivery systems.
2019年12月底，一种现被命名为COVID-19的呼吸道感染疫情在中国武汉出现。它由一种新发现的病毒病原体——严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒（SARS-CoV-2）引起，该病毒可导致严重肺炎和急性呼吸窘迫综合征。2020年1月30日，由于感染迅速传播，COVID-19被世界卫生组织宣布为全球卫生紧急事件。冠状病毒是有包膜的RNA病毒，属于冠状病毒科，能够感染鸟类、人类和其他哺乳动物。大多数人类冠状病毒感染症状较轻，尽管在2003年和2012年分别出现的严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒（SARS-CoV）和中东呼吸综合征冠状病毒（MERS-CoV）疫情具有高死亡率的特征。在这方面，人们已做出许多努力来开发针对人类冠状病毒感染的治疗策略，但遗憾的是，候选药物仅在研究中显示出疗效，限制了它们在对抗COVID-19感染中的应用。实际上，目前尚无针对SARS-CoV-2的人类治疗方法获批，因此迫切需要一种合适的疫苗来应对这一健康问题。然而，病毒的生物学特性及其与人类免疫反应相互作用的复杂情况，对疫苗研发构成了挑战。不出所料，数百个研究实验室都在争分夺秒地探索不同策略以获得一种安全且能快速推广的疫苗；其中，基于肽的方法是一个转折点，因为肽已显示出对特定靶点具有独特的选择性和特异性。基于肽的疫苗意味着要在人类细胞和病毒衣壳上识别不同的表位，并设计能够对抗宿主与病原体初次相互作用的肽/肽模拟物，以诱导宿主产生特异性免疫反应。与其他冠状病毒一样，SARS-CoV-2免疫原性区域主要分布在刺突蛋白、包膜蛋白、膜蛋白或核衣壳蛋白等结构区域。在此，我们旨在强调感染的分子基础以及近期基于肽的疫苗策略，以对抗COVID-19大流行，包括其递送系统。
