Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Chettinad Academy of Research and Education (CARE), Chettinad Hospital and Research Institute (CHRI), Kelambakkam, Chennai, TN, 603103, India.
Department of Pharmacology, Chettinad Hospital and Research Institute (CHRI), Chettinad Academy of Research and Education (CARE), Chennai, TN, India.
Infection. 2023 Dec;51(6):1603-1618. doi: 10.1007/s15010-023-02017-8. Epub 2023 Mar 12.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has put the world in a medical crisis for the past three years; nearly 6.3 million lives have been diminished due to the virus outbreak. This review aims to update the recent findings on COVID-19 infections from an epigenetic scenario and develop future perspectives of epi-drugs to treat the disease.
Original research articles and review studies related to COVID-19 were searched and analyzed from the Google Scholar/PubMed/Medline databases mainly between 2019 and 2022 to brief the recent work.
Numerous in-depth studies of the mechanisms used by SARS-CoV-2 have been going on to minimize the consequences of the viral outburst. Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 receptors and Transmembrane serine protease 2 facilitate viral entry to the host cells. Upon internalization, it uses the host machinery to replicate viral copies and alter the downstream regulation of the normal cells, causing infection-related morbidities and mortalities. In addition, several epigenetic regulations such as DNA methylation, acetylation, histone modifications, microRNA, and other factors (age, sex, etc.) are responsible for the regulations of viral entry, its immune evasion, and cytokine responses also play a major modulatory role in COVID-19 severity, which has been discussed in detail in this review.
Findings of epigenetic regulation of viral pathogenicity open a new window for epi-drugs as a possible therapeutical approach against COVID-19.
由新型严重急性呼吸系统综合症冠状病毒 2（SARS-CoV-2）引起的 COVID-19 大流行在过去三年中使世界陷入医疗危机；近 630 万人的生命因该病毒的爆发而减少。本综述旨在从表观遗传学角度更新 COVID-19 感染的最新发现，并为治疗该疾病的 epi 药物的未来发展提供新的视角。
主要从 Google Scholar/PubMed/Medline 数据库中搜索并分析了 2019 年至 2022 年期间与 COVID-19 相关的原始研究文章和综述研究，以简述最近的工作。
正在进行大量深入研究 SARS-CoV-2 所使用的机制，以减轻病毒爆发的后果。血管紧张素转化酶 2 受体和跨膜丝氨酸蛋白酶 2 促进病毒进入宿主细胞。进入细胞后，它利用宿主机制复制病毒副本，并改变正常细胞的下游调节，导致与感染相关的发病率和死亡率。此外，几种表观遗传调控，如 DNA 甲基化、乙酰化、组蛋白修饰、微小 RNA 以及其他因素（年龄、性别等），负责病毒进入、免疫逃逸和细胞因子反应的调控，这些在 COVID-19 的严重程度中也起着主要的调节作用，这在本综述中进行了详细讨论。
病毒致病性的表观遗传调控发现为 epi 药物作为治疗 COVID-19 的一种可能方法开辟了新的窗口。
