Therapeutic Approaches for COVID-19 Based on the Dynamics of Interferon-mediated Immune Responses

As the outbreak of COVID-19 has accelerated, an urgent need for finding strategies to combat the virus is growing. Thus, gaining more knowledge on the pathogenicity mechanism of SARS-CoV2, the causing agent of COVID-19, and its interaction with the immune system is of utmost importance. Although this novel virus is not well known yet, its structural and genetic similarity with SARS-CoV as well as the comparable pattern of age-mortality relations suggest that the previous findings on SARS can be applicable for COVID-19. Therefore, a systems biology study was conducted to investigate the underlying mechanism for the differences in the age-specific mortality of SARS and the most important signaling pathways activated by the virus. The results were then validated through a literature review on COVID-19 and the other closely related viruses, SARS and MERS.