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Review
. 2021 May 10:12:674922.
doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.674922. eCollection 2021.

SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Guillain-Barré Syndrome: A Review on Potential Pathogenic Mechanisms

Shahrzad Shoraka  1   2 , Maria Lucia Brito Ferreira  3 , Seyed Reza Mohebbi  4 , Amir Ghaemi  5
Affiliations
Review

SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Guillain-Barré Syndrome: A Review on Potential Pathogenic Mechanisms

Shahrzad Shoraka et al. Front Immunol. .

Abstract

Since December 2019, the world has been facing an outbreak of a new disease called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The COVID-19 pandemic is caused by a novel beta-coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The SARS-CoV-2 infection mainly affects the respiratory system. Recently, there have been some reports of extra-respiratory symptoms such as neurological manifestations in COVID-19. According to the increasing reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome following COVID-19, we mainly focused on SARS-CoV-2 infection and Guillain-Barré syndrome in this review. We tried to explain the possibility of a relationship between SARS-CoV-2 infection and Guillain-Barré syndrome and potential pathogenic mechanisms based on current and past knowledge.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Guillain-Barré syndrome; Neurological manifestations; SARS-CoV-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic classification of neurological complications associated with coronavirus infections. Coronaviruses could directly or indirectly affect the CNS and/or PNS and lead to post- or para-infectious neurological complications. The concept appears to be generalizable to SARS-CoV-2 as well.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic comparison of the classical Guillain-Barré syndrome pattern with the COVID-19 related GBS. It appears that COVID-19 related GBS follow the both post- and para-infections patterns.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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