Liliana Elena Weimer*, Cattari G, Binelli A, Fanales Belasio E, Piras S, Sensi F
The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has challenged public health around the world. Currently, there is an urgent need to explore antiviral therapeutic targets and effective clinical drugs. Monoclonal antibodies are a type of therapeutic agent under investigation for the treatment of COVID-19. These agents are often created by identifying pathogen-specific B cells of patients who have recently recovered from an infection or by immunizing mice genetically modified to have a humanized immune system and harvesting effective antibodies from them. Once the B cells are identified, the genes of immune globulin heavy and light chains are recovered. These genes are then expressed to produce monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies have singular activity against a predetermined target; they therefore differ from convalescent plasma, which consists of polyclonal antibodies in serum derived from patients who are convalescing from an infection.
We summarized the latest therapeutic strategies against COVID-19, namely drugs targeting the SARS-CoV-2 life cycle and SARS-CoV-2 induced inflammation in host cells. The development of above two strategies is implemented by repurposing drugs and exploring potential targets.
A comprehensive summary of promising drugs, provides recommendations for clinicians as evidence-based medicine in the actual clinical COVID-19 treatment. Considering the emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants greatly impact the effectiveness of drugs and vaccines, we reviewed the appearance and details of SARS-CoV-2 variants at November 2022 for further perspectives in drug design, which brings updating clues to develop therapeutical agents against the variants. Based on this, the development of broadly antiviral drugs, combined with immune modulatory is prior to being considered for therapeutic interventions on mutant strains of SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, it is highly acclaimed the requirements of the concerted efforts from multi-disciplinary basic studies and clinical trials, which improves the accurate treatment of COVID-19 and optimizes the contingency measures to emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants.