COVID-19: The question of genetic diversity and therapeutic intervention approaches

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is the largest pandemic in modern history with very high infection rates and considerable mortality. The disease, which emerged in China’s Wuhan province, had its first reported case on December 29, 2019, and spread rapidly worldwide. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic and global health emergency. Since the outbreak, efforts to develop COVID-19 vaccines, engineer new drugs, and evaluate existing ones for drug repurposing have been intensively undertaken to find ways to control this pandemic. COVID-19 therapeutic strategies aim to impair molecular pathways involved in the virus entrance and replication or interfere in the patients’ overreaction and immunopathology. Moreover, nanotechnology could be an approach to boost the activity of new drugs. Several COVID-19 vaccine candidates have received emergency-use or full authorization in one or more countries, and others are being developed and tested. This review assesses the different strategies currently proposed to control COVID-19 and the issues or limitations imposed on some approaches by the human and viral genetic variability.

Neurodevelopmental disturbances in schizophrenia: evidence from genetic and environmental factors

“…In nonhuman primates, maternal immune activation induces cognitive dysfunction and deficits in brain growth, characterized by grey and white matter prefrontal volume deficits in adulthood (Vlasova et al 2021). Future studies should investigate the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection during the prenatal period since the consequences of the cytokine storm on brain development are unknown (Figueiredo et al 2021). In fact, retrospective studies have shown an association between SZ and timing of birth during infectious epidemics induced by influenza, polio, diphtheria and measles (Eyles 2021).…”