Innate Immunity Evasion Strategies of Highly Pathogenic Coronaviruses: SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2

Jin-Yan Li; Zhi-Jian Zhou; Qiong Wang; Qing-Nan He; Ming-Yi Zhao; Ye Qiu; Xing-Yi Ge

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2021.770656

Innate Immunity Evasion Strategies of Highly Pathogenic Coronaviruses: SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2

Front Microbiol. 2021 Oct 29:12:770656. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.770656. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Jin-Yan Li¹, Zhi-Jian Zhou¹, Qiong Wang¹, Qing-Nan He², Ming-Yi Zhao², Ye Qiu¹, Xing-Yi Ge¹

Affiliations

¹ Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Virology, Institute of Pathogen Biology and Immunology, College of Biology, Hunan University, Changsha, China.
² Department of Pediatrics, The Third Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.

Abstract

In the past two decades, coronavirus (CoV) has emerged frequently in the population. Three CoVs (SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2) have been identified as highly pathogenic human coronaviruses (HP-hCoVs). Particularly, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 warns that HP-hCoVs present a high risk to human health. Like other viruses, HP-hCoVs interact with their host cells in sophisticated manners for infection and pathogenesis. Here, we reviewed the current knowledge about the interference of HP-hCoVs in multiple cellular processes and their impacts on viral infection. HP-hCoVs employed various strategies to suppress and evade from immune response, including shielding viral RNA from recognition by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), impairing IFN-I production, blocking the downstream pathways of IFN-I, and other evasion strategies. This summary provides a comprehensive view of the interplay between HP-hCoVs and the host cells, which is helpful to understand the mechanism of viral pathogenesis and develop antiviral therapies.

Keywords: IFN signaling pathway; SARS-CoV-2; highly pathogenic coronaviruses; host–virus interaction; innate immunity.

Publication types

Review