Immune responses in COVID-19 and potential vaccines: Lessons learned from SARS and MERS epidemic
AUTHORS: Eakachai Prompetchara 1,2,3 Chutitorn Ketloy 1,2 Tanapat Palaga 4,5
AUTHOR AFFILIATIONS:
1 Center of Excellence in Vaccine Research and Development (Chula Vaccine Research Center Chula VRC), Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
2 Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
3 Vaccines and Therapeutic Proteins Research Group, the Special Task Force for Activating Research (STAR), Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
4 Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
5 Center of Excellence in Immunology and Immune-mediated Diseases, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
ABSTRACT: As the world is witnessing the epidemic of COVID-19, a disease caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, emerging genetics and clinical evidences suggest a similar path to those of SARS and MERS. The rapid genomic sequencing and open access data, together with advanced vaccine technology, are expected to give us more knowledge on the pathogen itself, including the host immune response as well as the plan for therapeutic vaccines in the near future. This review aims to provide a comparative view among SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and the newly epidemic SARS-CoV-2, in the hope to gain a better understanding of the host-pathogen interaction, host immune responses, and the pathogen immune evasion strategies. This predictive view may help in designing an immune intervention or preventive vaccine for COVID-19 in the near future.