Lymphopenia in COVID‐19: Therapeutic opportunities
Nazanin Fathi, Nima Rezaei
Abstract
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is uncontrollably spread all over the world. The host immune responses strongly try to confront it with all the potential cells and cytokines. With chronically condition of SARS-CoV-2, natural killer cells and T cells become exhausted and decreasing their count leads to lymphopenia. Inability to eradicate the infected organ makes hyperinitiation of the immune system, which releases the excessive inflammatory cytokines to compensate the exhausted one as well as the low lymphocytes counts; it consequently leads to the cytokine storm syndrome. These mechanisms and the potential therapeutic targeting are discussed in this paper.
Topics & Concepts
Cytokine stormImmune systemCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)ImmunologySevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)CytokineCoronavirusBiology2019-20 coronavirus outbreakRespiratory systemMedicineVirologyInfectious disease (medical specialty)DiseaseInternal medicineAnatomyOutbreakCOVID-19 Clinical Research StudiesInflammasome and immune disordersSARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research