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As of October 15, 216,025 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in the United States, and more than 840,000 deaths globally have been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic from SARS-COV-2 infection. Unfortunately, there is currently no licensed vaccine or specific treatment. Over the past few months, scientists have pulled out all the tricks to develop treatments for COVID-19, from stem cells and synthetic antibodies to common over-the-counter drugs and proven steroids. Effective treatments for COVID-19 are urgently needed all over the world.
Now, in a new study, researchers at Fudan University in China, Wuhan University, Jinan University and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States reported a decoy nanoparticle against COVID-19. According to their research, they’ve made it through a powerful two-step neutralization approach:
“virus neutralization in the first step followed by cytokine neutralization in the second step. The nanodecoy, made by fusing cellular membrane nanovesicles derived from human monocytes and genetically engineered cells stably expressing angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2) receptors, possesses an antigenic exterior the same as source cells. By competing with host cells for virus binding, these nanodecoys effectively protect host cells from the infection of pseudoviruses and authentic SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, relying on abundant cytokine receptors on the surface, the nanodecoys efficiently bind and neutralize inflammatory cytokines including interleukin 6 (IL-6) and granulocyte−macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), and significantly suppress immune disorder and lung injury in an acute pneumonia mouse model.”
The authors suggested that their finding could be a potential therapeutic method for COVID-19, as their work presents a simple, safe, and robust antiviral nanotechnology. This new finding could provide a new strategy for the design of COVID-19 treatment, but the researchers also pointed out further studies and optimization will be necessary before such nanoparticles can be used to fight COVID-19. Related research results were published in PNAS journal recently, paper entitled Decoy nanoparticles protect against COVID-19 by concurrently adsorbing viruses and inflammatory cytokines.
It is not difficult to find that this study proposed a novel drug design idea for the prevention and control of COVID-19 infection. While interfering with viral infection, it also neutralized and verified cytokines, so as to further alleviate immune disorders caused by cytokine storm. At the same time, this nano-bait particle has a broad spectrum of coronavirus neutralization effect, can resist a variety of coronavirus using ACE2 as the invasion receptor, and has no biological toxicity, providing a unique solution for the novel coronavirus drug design.
About the author: CD Bioparticles is a global leading manufacturer and supplier of various nanoparticles, microparticles and their coatings for R&D and commercialization in a wide variety of application areas including in vitro diagnostics, biochemistry, cellular analysis, cell separation, and immunoassay. It provides highly uniform nanoparticles widely used in biology and medicine, including colloidal gold nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles, silica nanoparticles, titania nanoparticles, inorganic fluorescent nanoparticles (quantum dots and upconversion nanocrystals), as well as biodegradable polymer nanoparticles.
Reference:
Rao, L., Xia, S., Xu, W., Tian, R., Yu, G., Gu, C., … & Lu, L. (2020). Decoy nanoparticles protect against COVID-19 by concurrently adsorbing viruses and inflammatory cytokines. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.