• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• 제21권1호
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• pp.1.1-1.16
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• 2021

The emergence of a new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has become a significant health concern worldwide. Undoubtedly, a better understanding of the innate and adaptive immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 and its relationship with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pathogenesis will be the sole basis for developing and applying therapeutics. This review will summarize the published results that relate to innate immune responses against infections with human coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 in both humans and animal models. The topics encompass the innate immune sensing of the virus to the dysregulation of various innate immune cells during infection and disease progression.

• 생명과학회지
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• 제33권2호
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• pp.199-207
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• 2023

Post-COVID-19 시대에 다가올 전염병의 위협에 대비하기 위해 인간, 동물, 환경의 건강이 하나라는 One-health 개념에 기반한 연구가 필수적이다. 현재 인간의 SARS-CoV-2의 높은 감염률과 바이러스 부하로 인해 종을 뛰어넘는 감염이 확인되고 있다. 대표적으로 사람에서 밍크로의 전파 가능성이 확인되었고, 밀접 접촉 중에 사람에서 고양이로 전파가 가능할 것으로 추정되고 있다. 현재까지의 자료를 통해 가축류, 가금류에서의 감염 가능성이 낮은 것으로 보여지나 새로운 변이로 인해 감염이 확립된다면 인간의 식량 안보, 경제, 무역 등 다양한 분야에 파급 효과가 클 것으로 예측된다. 또한 SARS-CoV-2의 풍토화 전망과 반려동물로의 접근성이 높다는 점 등이 우려되는 상황이다. 바이러스의 진화는 동물 숙주에서 발생할 가능성이 높고, 다른 종에서 SARS-CoV-2가 확립되면 인간 집단에 바이러스가 다시 출현할 수 있는 중간 숙주 역할을 할 수도 있기 때문이다. SARS-CoV-2의 동물 감염에 대한 연구 데이터를 지속적으로 축적하여 빠른 대응이 필요하다고 생각된다. 또한 동물 감염에 대한 연구는 SARS-CoV-2 백신 및 치료제 연구에 사용되는 동물 모델의 개발 등을 포함한 다방면에서 중요하다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 SARS-CoV-2의 동물 감염에 대해 역학 검토 및 대응 전략을 One-health 관점에서 접근하여 분석하였다.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• 제30권5호
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• pp.427-434
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• 2022

The drug repurposing strategy has been applied to the development of emergency COVID-19 therapeutic medicines. Current drug repurposing approaches have been directed against RNA polymerases and viral proteases. Recently, we found that the inhibition of the interaction between the SARS-CoV-2 structural nucleocapsid (N) and spike (S) proteins decreased viral replication. In this study, drug repurposing candidates were screened by in silico molecular docking simulation with the SARS-CoV-2 structural N protein. In the ChEMBL database, 1994 FDA-approved drugs were selected for the in silico virtual screening against the N terminal domain (NTD) of the SARS-CoV-2 N protein. The tyrosine 109 residue in the NTD of the N protein was used as the center of the ligand binding grid for the docking simulation. In plaque forming assays performed with SARS-CoV-2 infected Vero E6 cells, atovaquone, abiraterone acetate, and digoxin exhibited a tendency to reduce the size of the viral plagues without affecting the plaque numbers. Abiraterone acetate significantly decreased the accumulation of viral particles in the cell culture supernatants in a concentration-dependent manner. In addition, abiraterone acetate significantly decreased the production of N protein and S protein in the SARS-CoV-2-infected Vero E6 cells. In conclusion, abiraterone acetate has therapeutic potential to inhibit the viral replication of SARS-CoV-2.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.1-10
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• 2020

2019년 12월에 중국 후베이성 우한시에서 원인 미상 폐렴이 무리 지어 발생하기 시작하였다. 환자의 하기도에서 이전에 알려지지 않은 새로운 코로나바이러스가 분리되었으며 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)로 명명되었다. 세계보건기구는 SARS-CoV-2에 의한 질병을 코로나바이러스감염증-19(coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19)로 명명하였다. 2020년 3월 11일에 COVID-19는 전세계 최소 114국으로 퍼졌으며 약 4,000명이 사망하여 세계보건기구는 COVID-19가 세계적 대유행임을 선언하였다. 지난 20년 동안 새로운 코로나바이러스에 의한 두 번의 유행이 있었다. 2002-2003년 중증급성호흡기증후군(severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS) 유행 시에는 8,098명의 확진 환자와 774명의 사망자가 발생하였으며, 2012년에 사우디 아라비아에서 시작되어 현재까지 주로 아라비아 반도에서 발생하고 있는 중동호흡기증후군(Middle East respiratory syndrome, MERS)는 2019년까지 총 2,499명의 환자와 858명의 사망자를 발생시켰다. 본 종설의 목적은 2020년 3월 12일까지 알려진 SARS-CoV-2의 특징과 전파 양상 및 COVID-19의 임상 증상을 알아보고 SARS와 MERS와의 유사점 및 차이점에 대하여 간략하게 소개하는 것이다.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• 제20권4호
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• pp.28.1-28.25
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• 2020

The recent emergence of the novel coronavirus (CoV) or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) poses a global threat to human health and economy. As of June 26, 2020, over 9.4 million cases of infection, including 482,730 deaths, had been confirmed across 216 countries. To combat a devastating virus pandemic, numerous studies on vaccine development are urgently being accelerated. In this review article, we take a brief look at the characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 in comparison to SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoVs and discuss recent approaches to coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) vaccine development.

• Molecules and Cells
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• 제44권9호
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• pp.688-695
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• 2021

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has become a global health concern. Various SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have been developed and are being used for vaccination worldwide. However, no therapeutic agents against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been developed so far; therefore, new therapeutic agents are urgently needed. In the present study, we evaluated several hepatitis C virus direct-acting antivirals as potential candidates for drug repurposing against COVID-19. Theses include asunaprevir (a protease inhibitor), daclatasvir (an NS5A inhibitor), and sofosbuvir (an RNA polymerase inhibitor). We found that asunaprevir, but not sofosbuvir and daclatasvir, markedly inhibited SARS-CoV-2-induced cytopathic effects in Vero E6 cells. Both RNA and protein levels of SARS-CoV-2 were significantly decreased by treatment with asunaprevir. Moreover, asunaprevir profoundly decreased virion release from SARS-CoV-2-infected cells. A pseudoparticle entry assay revealed that asunaprevir blocked SARS-CoV-2 infection at the binding step of the viral life cycle. Furthermore, asunaprevir inhibited SARS-CoV-2 propagation in human lung Calu-3 cells. Collectively, we found that asunaprevir displays broad-spectrum antiviral activity and therefore might be worth developing as a new drug repurposing candidate for COVID-19.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제32권10호
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• pp.1335-1343
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• 2022

COVID-19 is an emerging disease that poses a severe threat to global public health. As such, there is an urgent demand for vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Here, we describe a virus-like nanoparticle candidate vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 produced by an E. coli expression system. The fusion protein of a truncated ORF2-encoded protein of aa 439~608 (p170) from hepatitis E virus CCJD-517 and the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 were expressed, purified and characterized. The antigenicity and immunogenicity of p170-RBD were evaluated in vitro and in Kunming mice. Our investigation revealed that p170-RBD self-assembled into approximately 24 nm virus-like particles, which could bind to serum from vaccinated people (p < 0.001) and receptors on cells. Immunization with p170-RBD induced the titer of IgG antibody vaccine increased from 14 days post-immunization and was significantly enhanced after a booster immunization at 28 dpi, ultimately reaching a peak level on 42 dpi with a titer of 4.97 log₁₀. Pseudovirus neutralization tests showed that the candidate vaccine induced a strong neutralizing antibody response in mice. In this research, we demonstrated that p170-RBD possesses strong antigenicity and immunogenicity and could be a potential candidate for use in future SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• 제23권3호
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• pp.25.1-25.17
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• 2023

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection induces excessive pro-inflammatory cytokine release and cell death, leading to organ damage and mortality. High-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is one of the damage-associated molecular patterns that can be secreted by pro-inflammatory stimuli, including viral infections, and its excessive secretion levels are related to a variety of inflammatory diseases. Here, the aim of the study was to show that SARS-CoV-2 infection induced HMGB1 secretion via active and passive release. Active HMGB1 secretion was mediated by post-translational modifications, such as acetylation, phosphorylation, and oxidation in HEK293E/ACE2-C-GFP and Calu-3 cells during SARS-CoV-2 infection. Passive release of HMGB1 has been linked to various types of cell death; however, we demonstrated for the first time that PANoptosis, which integrates other cell death pathways, including pyroptosis, apoptosis, and necroptosis, is related to passive HMGB1 release during SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, cytoplasmic translocation and extracellular secretion or release of HMGB1 were confirmed via immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence in the lung tissues of humans and angiotensin-converting enzyme 2-overexpressing mice infected with SARS-CoV-2.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제19권4호
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• pp.49.1-49.11
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• 2021

Nowadays, Genomic data constitutes one of the fastest growing datasets in the world. As of 2025, it is supposed to become the fourth largest source of Big Data, and thus mandating adequate high-performance computing (HPC) platform for processing. With the latest unprecedented and unpredictable mutations in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the research community is in crucial need for ICT tools to process SARS-CoV-2 RNA data, e.g., by classifying it (i.e., clustering) and thus assisting in tracking virus mutations and predict future ones. In this paper, we are presenting an HPC-based SARS-CoV-2 RNAs clustering tool. We are adopting a data science approach, from data collection, through analysis, to visualization. In the analysis step, we present how our clustering approach leverages on HPC and the longest common subsequence (LCS) algorithm. The approach uses the Hadoop MapReduce programming paradigm and adapts the LCS algorithm in order to efficiently compute the length of the LCS for each pair of SARS-CoV-2 RNA sequences. The latter are extracted from the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Virus repository. The computed LCS lengths are used to measure the dissimilarities between RNA sequences in order to work out existing clusters. In addition to that, we present a comparative study of the LCS algorithm performance based on variable workloads and different numbers of Hadoop worker nodes.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• 제23권4호
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• pp.52.1-52.7
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• 2022

This paper reports a presumptive severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in a cat. A cat with respiratory disease living with three individuals with coronavirus disease 2019 showed bilateral ground-glass opacities in the lung on X-ray and computed tomography. The clinical swabs were negative for SARS-CoV-2 RNA, but the serum was positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Interstitial pneumonia and prominent type 2 pneumocyte hyperplasia were noted on histopathology. Respiratory tissues were negative for SARS-CoV-2 RNA or antigen, but the cat was positive for feline parvovirus DNA. In conclusion, the respiratory disease and associated pathology in this cat could have been due to exposure to SARS-CoV-2.