The COVID-19 Pandemic: SARS-CoV-2 Structure, Infection, Transmission, Symptomology, and Variants of Concern

Overview

Journal Adv Exp Med Biol

Specialties Biology
General Medicine

Date 2023 Jun 28

PMID 37378759

Authors

Paul C Guest

Prashant Kesharwani

Alexandra E Butler

Amirhossein Sahebkar

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Since it was first detected in December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the world and affected virtually every country and territory. The pathogen driving this pandemic is SARS-CoV-2, a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus which is primarily transmissible though the air and can cause mild to severe respiratory infections in humans. Within the first year of the pandemic, the situation worsened with the emergence of several SARS-CoV-2 variants. Some of these were observed to be more virulent with varying capacities to escape the existing vaccines and were, therefore, denoted as variants of concern. This chapter provides a general overview of the course of the COVID-19 pandemic up to April 2022 with a focus on the structure, infection, transmission, and symptomology of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The main objectives were to investigate the effects of the variants of concern on the trajectory of the virus and to highlight a potential pathway for coping with the current and future pandemics.

Citing Articles

Clinical Manifestations of Acute COVID-19 in Previously Healthy Pediatric Patients Diagnosed by Rapid Antigen Screening in a Community-Based, Outpatient Primary Care Pediatrics Practice.

Calderwood S, Montoya E, Brar M Children (Basel). 2024; 11(11).

PMID: 39594919 PMC: 11592928. DOI: 10.3390/children11111344.

Advancements in the Development of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Therapeutics.

Huang J, Ma Q, Su Z, Cheng X Int J Mol Sci. 2024; 25(19).

PMID: 39409149 PMC: 11477007. DOI: 10.3390/ijms251910820.

References

Thye A, Law J, Pusparajah P, Letchumanan V, Chan K, Lee L . Emerging SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern (VOCs): An Impending Global Crisis. Biomedicines. 2021; 9(10). PMC: 8533361. DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines9101303. View

Zhou P, Yang X, Wang X, Hu B, Zhang L, Zhang W . A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Nature. 2020; 579(7798):270-273. PMC: 7095418. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2012-7. View

Wu F, Zhao S, Yu B, Chen Y, Wang W, Song Z . A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China. Nature. 2020; 579(7798):265-269. PMC: 7094943. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2008-3. View

Zhong N, Zheng B, Li Y, Poon , Xie Z, Chan K . Epidemiology and cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Guangdong, People's Republic of China, in February, 2003. Lancet. 2003; 362(9393):1353-8. PMC: 7112415. DOI: 10.1016/s0140-6736(03)14630-2. View

Zaki A, van Boheemen S, Bestebroer T, Osterhaus A, Fouchier R . Isolation of a novel coronavirus from a man with pneumonia in Saudi Arabia. N Engl J Med. 2012; 367(19):1814-20. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1211721. View

Bleibtreu A, Bertine M, Bertin C, Houhou-Fidouh N, Visseaux B . Focus on Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Med Mal Infect. 2019; 50(3):243-251. PMC: 7125975. DOI: 10.1016/j.medmal.2019.10.004. View

Fehr A, Perlman S . Coronaviruses: an overview of their replication and pathogenesis. Methods Mol Biol. 2015; 1282:1-23. PMC: 4369385. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-2438-7_1. View

Ksiazek T, Erdman D, Goldsmith C, Zaki S, Peret T, Emery S . A novel coronavirus associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome. N Engl J Med. 2003; 348(20):1953-66. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa030781. View

Neil D, Moran L, Horsfield C, Curtis E, Swann O, Barclay W . Ultrastructure of cell trafficking pathways and coronavirus: how to recognise the wolf amongst the sheep. J Pathol. 2020; 252(4):346-357. DOI: 10.1002/path.5547. View

10.

Bandaru R, Rout S, Kamble O, Samal S, Gorain B, Sahebkar A . Clinical progress of therapeutics and vaccines: Rising hope against COVID-19 treatment. Process Biochem. 2022; 118:154-170. PMC: 9008982. DOI: 10.1016/j.procbio.2022.04.011. View

11.

Lu R, Zhao X, Li J, Niu P, Yang B, Wu H . Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding. Lancet. 2020; 395(10224):565-574. PMC: 7159086. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30251-8. View

12.

Rastogi M, Pandey N, Shukla A, Singh S . SARS coronavirus 2: from genome to infectome. Respir Res. 2020; 21(1):318. PMC: 7706175. DOI: 10.1186/s12931-020-01581-z. View

13.

Thakur S, Sasi S, Pillai S, Nag A, Shukla D, Singhal R . SARS-CoV-2 Mutations and Their Impact on Diagnostics, Therapeutics and Vaccines. Front Med (Lausanne). 2022; 9:815389. PMC: 8902153. DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2022.815389. View

14.

Hoffmann M, Kleine-Weber H, Schroeder S, Kruger N, Herrler T, Erichsen S . SARS-CoV-2 Cell Entry Depends on ACE2 and TMPRSS2 and Is Blocked by a Clinically Proven Protease Inhibitor. Cell. 2020; 181(2):271-280.e8. PMC: 7102627. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.02.052. View

15.

Van Vo G, Bagyinszky E, Park Y, Hulme J, An S . SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19): Beginning to Understand a New Virus. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2021; 1321:3-19. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-59261-5_1. View

16.

Hernandez V, Zetter M, Guerra E, Hernandez-Araiza I, Karuzin N, Hernandez-Perez O . ACE2 expression in rat brain: Implications for COVID-19 associated neurological manifestations. Exp Neurol. 2021; 345:113837. PMC: 8361001. DOI: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2021.113837. View

17.

Smeekens S, Steiner D . Identification of a human insulinoma cDNA encoding a novel mammalian protein structurally related to the yeast dibasic processing protease Kex2. J Biol Chem. 1990; 265(6):2997-3000. View

18.

Hasan A, Paray B, Hussain A, Qadir F, Attar F, Aziz F . A review on the cleavage priming of the spike protein on coronavirus by angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 and furin. J Biomol Struct Dyn. 2020; 39(8):3025-3033. PMC: 7189411. DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2020.1754293. View

19.

Evans J, Liu S . Role of host factors in SARS-CoV-2 entry. J Biol Chem. 2021; 297(1):100847. PMC: 8160279. DOI: 10.1016/j.jbc.2021.100847. View

20.

Romano M, Ruggiero A, Squeglia F, Maga G, Berisio R . A Structural View of SARS-CoV-2 RNA Replication Machinery: RNA Synthesis, Proofreading and Final Capping. Cells. 2020; 9(5). PMC: 7291026. DOI: 10.3390/cells9051267. View