Abusalah Mai Abdel Haleem, Khalifa Moad, Al-Hatamleh Mohammad A I, Jarrar Mu'taman, Mohamud Rohimah, Chan Yean Yean
Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kota Bharu 16150, Kelantan, Malaysia.
School of Health Sciences, Health Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kubang Kerian, Kota Bharu 16150, Kelantan, Malaysia.
J Pers Med. 2022 Mar 3;12(3):386. doi: 10.3390/jpm12030386.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has shaken the world and triggered drastic changes in our lifestyle to control it. Despite the non-typical efforts, COVID-19 still thrives and plagues humanity worldwide. The unparalleled degree of infection has been met with an exceptional degree of research to counteract it. Many drugs and therapeutic technologies have been repurposed and discovered, but no groundbreaking antiviral agent has been introduced yet to eradicate COVID-19 and restore normalcy. As lethality is directly correlated with the severity of disease, hospitalized severe cases are of the greatest importance to reduce, especially the cytokine storm phenomenon. This severe inflammatory phenomenon characterized by elevated levels of inflammatory mediators can be targeted to relieve symptoms and save the infected patients. One of the promising therapeutic strategies to combat COVID-19 is nucleic acid-based therapeutic approaches, including microRNAs (miRNAs). This work is an up-to-date review aimed to comprehensively discuss the current nucleic acid-based therapeutics against COVID-19 and their mechanisms of action, taking into consideration the emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, as well as providing potential future directions. miRNAs can be used to run interference with the expression of viral proteins, while endogenous miRNAs can be targeted as well, offering a versatile platform to control SARS-CoV-2 infection. By targeting these miRNAs, the COVID-19-induced cytokine storm can be suppressed. Therefore, nucleic acid-based therapeutics (miRNAs included) have a latent ability to break the COVID-19 infection in general and quell the cytokine storm in particular.
2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）震惊了世界，并引发了我们生活方式的巨大变化以控制疫情。尽管付出了非凡努力，COVID-19仍在肆虐，困扰着全球人类。前所未有的感染程度引发了与之相应的大量研究以对抗它。许多药物和治疗技术已被重新利用和发现，但尚未推出突破性的抗病毒药物来根除COVID-19并恢复正常生活。由于致死率与疾病严重程度直接相关，减少住院重症病例，尤其是细胞因子风暴现象至关重要。这种以炎症介质水平升高为特征的严重炎症现象可以作为治疗靶点来缓解症状并挽救感染患者。对抗COVID-19的一种有前景的治疗策略是基于核酸的治疗方法，包括微小RNA（miRNA）。这项工作是一篇最新综述，旨在全面讨论当前针对COVID-19的基于核酸的治疗方法及其作用机制，同时考虑到新出现的值得关注的严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）变种，并提供潜在的未来研究方向。miRNA可用于干扰病毒蛋白的表达，同时内源性miRNA也可作为靶点，为控制SARS-CoV-2感染提供了一个多功能平台。通过靶向这些miRNA，可以抑制COVID-19诱导的细胞因子风暴。因此，基于核酸的治疗方法（包括miRNA）总体上具有打破COVID-19感染、特别是平息细胞因子风暴的潜在能力。
