Abstract
Infectious diseases are a continues threat to human health and the economy worldwide. The latest example is the global pandemic of COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2. Antibody therapy and vaccines are promising approaches to treat the disease; however, they have bottlenecks: they might have low efficacy or narrow breadth due to the continuous emergence of new strains of the virus or antibodies could cause antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of infection. To address these bottlenecks, I propose the use of 24-meric ferritin for the synthesis of mosaic nanocages to deliver a cocktail of antibodies or nanobodies alone or in combination with another therapeutic, like a nucleotide analogue, to mimic the viral entry process and deceive the virus, or to develop mosaic vaccines. I argue that available data showing the effectiveness of ferritin-antibody conjugates in targeting specific cells and ferritin-haemagglutinin nanocages in developing influenza vaccines strongly support my proposals.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1371-1378 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Chembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs |
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| Publication status | Published - 16 Apr 2021 |
Keywords
- Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2/chemistry
- Animals
- Antibodies/chemistry
- Antiviral Agents/chemistry
- COVID-19/drug therapy
- COVID-19 Vaccines/chemistry
- Drug Carriers/chemistry
- Ferritins/chemistry
- Humans
- Mice
- Nanostructures/chemistry
- SARS-CoV-2/isolation & purification
- Serine Endopeptidases/chemistry
- Virus Internalization/drug effects
