The novel SARS-CoV-2 is a recently emerging virus causing a human pandemic. A great variety of symptoms associated with COVID-19 disease, ranging from mild to severe symptoms, eventually leading to death. Specific SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR is the standard method to screen symptomatic people; however, asymptomatic subjects and subjects with undetectable viral load escape from the screening, contributing to viral spread. Currently, the lock down imposed by many governments is an important measure to contain the spread, as there is no specific antiviral therapy or a vaccine and the main treatments are supportive. Therefore, there is urgent need to characterize the virus and the viral-mediated responses, in order to develop specific diagnostic and therapeutic tools to prevent viral transmission and efficiently cure COVID-19 patients. Here, we review the current studies on two viral mediated-responses, specifically the cytokine storm occurring in a subset of patients and the antibody response triggered by the infection. Further studies are needed to explore both the dynamics and the mechanisms of the humoral immune response in COVID-19 patients, in order to guide future vaccine design and antibody-based therapies for the management of the disease.
Figure S1. Impact of BHRF1 expression on the mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) and on the scoring of mitoaggresomes. (A and B) BHRF1 does not change the MMP. HeLa cells were transfected for 24 h with the BHRF1-HA plasmid or EV. Treatment with CCCP (2 h at 10 µM) was used as positive control to induce the loss of MMP. (A) Confocal images. Scale bar: 10 µm. (B) To assess the loss of MMP, colocalization between TOMM20 and CMXRos mitochondrial markers was measured by the Manders split coefficient using the ImageJ software. As MitoTracker CMXRos dye accumulates only in the mitochondria with intact membrane potential, the decrease in TOMM20/CMXRos colocalization level reflects a loss of MMP.
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