Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) is a complex disease that causes illness ranging from mild to severe respiratory problems. It is caused by a novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2) that is an enveloped positive-sense single-stranded RNA (+ssRNA) virus belongs to coronavirus CoV family. It has a fast-spreading potential worldwide, which leads to high mortality regardless of lows death rates. Now some vaccines or a specific drug are approved but not available for every country for disease prevention and/or treatment. Therefore, it is a high demand to identify the known drugs and test them as a possible therapeutic approach. In this critical situation, one or more of these drugs may represent the only option to treat or reduce the severity of the disease, until some specific drugs or vaccines will be developed and/or approved for everyone in this pandemic. In this updated review, the available repurpose immunotherapeutic treatment strategies are highlighted, elucidating the crosstalk between the immune system and SARS-CoV-2. Despite the reasonable data availability, the effectiveness and safety of these drugs against SARS-CoV-2 needs further studies and validations aiming for a better clinical outcome.
Introduction:The present study aimed to determine the alterations in the serum levels of tumor markers used to evaluate cardiac, renal and liver function, and detect the interleukin (IL)-18 rs1946518 polymorphism in breast (BC), colorectal (CRC) and prostate cancer (PCa) patients. Methods: Blood samples were collected from 65 female BC, 116 CRC, 79 PCa and 88 myocardial infarction (MI) patients, and 110 healthy individuals to determine the concentration of tumor and cardiac markers. Furthermore, the IL-18 rs1946518 polymorphism was assessed using amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS)-PCR. Results: The serum levels of the tumor markers cancer antigen 15-3 (CA 15-3), carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA 19-9), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and total prostate-specific antigen (TPSA) were significantly increased in cancer patients compared with healthy controls. Furthermore, the activity of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) and creatine kinase-myocardial band (CK-MB) was enhanced in MI patients, however, their activity was unchanged in cancer patients. The activity of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and the serum concentration of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and urea were markedly elevated in CRC and PCa patients, respectively, compared with the control group. Although, no significant differences were observed in the -607 C/A polymorphism and allele frequency of IL-18 among BC, CRC patients and healthy individuals, the odds ratio (OR) was 1.75 for both C and A allele in BC patients. Therefore, the -607 C/A polymorphism could be considered as a risk factor for BC. Conclusion: The aforementioned results suggested that tumor markers could be considered as excellent biomarkers for the early detection of BC, CRC and PCa, whereas the concentration of liver enzymes could serve as an alternative indicator for the diagnosis of CRC and PCa. Additionally, the rs1946518 polymorphism in the IL-18 gene could be considered as a risk factor for the occurrence of BC, CRC and PCa.
Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is a common manifestation of COVID-19 and several cases have been reported in the setting of the high-risk APOL1 genotype (common genetic variants). This increases the likelihood that African American people with the high-risk genotype APOL1 are at increased risk for kidney disease in the COVID-19 environment. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are found in various microRNAs (miRNAs) and target genes change the miRNA activity that leads to different diseases. Evidence has shown that SNPs increase/decrease the effectiveness of the interaction between miRNAs and disease-related target genes. The aim of this study is not only to identify miRSNPs on the APOL1 gene and SNPs in miRNA genes targeting 3′UTR but also to evaluate the effect of these gene variations in kidney patients and their association with SARS-COV-2 infection. In 3′UTR of the APOL1 gene, we detected 96 miRNA binding sites and 35 different SNPs with 10 different online software in the binding sites of the miRNA (in silico). Also we studied gene expression of patients and control samples by using qRT-PCR (in vitro). In silico study, the binding site of miR-6741-3p on APOL1 has two SNPs (rs1288875001, G > C; rs1452517383, A > C) on APOL1 3′UTR, and its genomic sequence is the same nucleotide as rs1288875001. Similarly, two other SNPs (rs1142591, T > A; rs376326225, G > A) were identified in the binding sites of miR-6741-3p at the first position. Here, the miRSNP (rs1288875001) in APOL1 3′UTR and SNP (rs376326225) in the miR-6741-3p genomic sequence are cross-matched in the same binding region. In vitro study, the relative expression levels were calculated by the 2 −ΔΔCt method & Mann-Whitney U test. The expression of APOL1 gene was different in chronic kidney patients along with COVID-19. By these results, APOL1 expression was found lower in patients than healthy (p < 0.05) in kidney patients along with COVID-19. In addition, miR-6741-3p targets many APOL1-related genes (TLR7,
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