Novel receptor, mutation, vaccine, and establishment of coping mode for SARS-CoV-2: current status and future

Zhaomu Zeng; Xiuchao Geng; Xichao Wen; Yueyue Chen; Yixi Zhu; Zishu Dong; Liangchao Hao; Tingting Wang; Jifeng Yang; Ruobing Zhang; Kebin Zheng; Zhiwei Sun; Yuhao Zhang

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1232453

Novel receptor, mutation, vaccine, and establishment of coping mode for SARS-CoV-2: current status and future

Front Microbiol. 2023 Aug 14:14:1232453. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1232453. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Zhaomu Zeng^#^{1

2

3}, Xiuchao Geng^#⁴, Xichao Wen^#³, Yueyue Chen⁵, Yixi Zhu⁶, Zishu Dong⁷, Liangchao Hao⁸, Tingting Wang³, Jifeng Yang³, Ruobing Zhang³, Kebin Zheng³, Zhiwei Sun⁵, Yuhao Zhang⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurosurgery, Jiangxi Provincial People's Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang Medical College, Nanchang, China.
² Department of Neurosurgery, Xiangya Hospital Jiangxi Hospital of Central South University, National Regional Medical Center for Nervous System Diseases, Nanchang, China.
³ Department of Neurosurgery, Affiliated Hospital of Hebei University, Baoding, China.
⁴ Department of Nursing, School of Medicine, Taizhou University, Taizhou, China.
⁵ Department of Toxicology and Sanitary Chemistry, School of Public Health, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
⁶ Department of Pharmacy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.
⁷ Department of Zoology, Advanced Research Institute, Jiangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanchang, China.
⁸ Department of Plastic Surgery, Shaoxing People's Hospital, Shaoxing, China.
⁹ Cancer Center, Department of Neurosurgery, Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital (Affiliated People's Hospital), Hangzhou Medical College, Hangzhou, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its resultant pneumonia in December 2019, the cumulative number of infected people worldwide has exceeded 670 million, with over 6.8 million deaths. Despite the marketing of multiple series of vaccines and the implementation of strict prevention and control measures in many countries, the spread and prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 have not been completely and effectively controlled. The latest research shows that in addition to angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), dozens of protein molecules, including AXL, can act as host receptors for SARS-CoV-2 infecting human cells, and virus mutation and immune evasion never seem to stop. To sum up, this review summarizes and organizes the latest relevant literature, comprehensively reviews the genome characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 as well as receptor-based pathogenesis (including ACE2 and other new receptors), mutation and immune evasion, vaccine development and other aspects, and proposes a series of prevention and treatment opinions. It is expected to provide a theoretical basis for an in-depth understanding of the pathogenic mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 along with a research basis and new ideas for the diagnosis and classification, of COVID-19-related disease and for drug and vaccine research and development.

Keywords: COVID-19 vaccines; Omicron variant; attachment factors; entry receptors; heterologous booster immunization; small molecule antiviral drugs.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The present study was financially supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos: 81930091 and 21805197); the Post-graduate’s Innovation Fund Project of Hebei Province (no: CXZZBS2022015); the Government-funded Clinical Medicine Outstanding Talent Training Project (no: 360017); the Medical Science Foundation of Hebei University (no: 2020A11); the Seed Foundation of Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital (no: ZRY2022J003); and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (no: 2023M733164).