Role and clinical implication of autophagy in COVID-19

Virology Journal

Review

Yan Cheng¹  Tianjiao Shan¹  Lan-ya Li¹  Jin-Ming Yang² 

[1] Department of Pharmacy, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, 410011, Changsha, China;Hunan Provincial Engineering Research Centre of Translational Medicine and Innovative Drug, 410011, Changsha, China;Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology, Department of Pharmacology, and Markey Cancer Center, University of Kentucky, 40536, Lexington, KY, USA;

关键词: Autophagy;    Clinical treatments;    Coronavirus;    COVID-19;    Infectious diseases;    SARS-CoV-2;    Vaccines;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12985-023-02069-0

 received in 2023-03-01, accepted in 2023-05-10,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic constitutes a serious public health concern worldwide. Currently, more than 6 million deaths have occurred despite drastic containment measures, and this number is still increasing. Currently, no standard therapies for COVID-19 are available, which necessitates identifying effective preventive and therapeutic agents against COVID-19. However, developing new drugs and vaccines is a time-consuming process, and therefore, repurposing the existing drugs or redeveloping related targets seems to be the best strategy to develop effective therapeutics against COVID-19. Autophagy, a multistep lysosomal degradation pathway contributing to nutrient recycling and metabolic adaptation, is involved in the initiation and progression of numerous diseases as a part of an immune response. The key role of autophagy in antiviral immunity has been extensively studied. Moreover, autophagy can directly eliminate intracellular microorganisms by selective autophagy, that is, “xenophagy.” However, viruses have acquired diverse strategies to exploit autophagy for their infection and replication. This review aims to trigger the interest in the field of autophagy as an antiviral target for viral pathogens (with an emphasis on COVID-19). We base this hypothesis on summarizing the classification and structure of coronaviruses as well as the process of SARS-CoV-2 infection and replication; providing the common understanding of autophagy; reviewing interactions between the mechanisms of viral entry/replication and the autophagy pathways; and discussing the current state of clinical trials of autophagy-modifying drugs in the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection. We anticipate that this review will contribute to the rapid development of therapeutics and vaccines against COVID-19.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

【 图 表 】

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