COVID-19 immunotherapy: Treatment based on the immune cell-mediated approaches

Abstract

Multiple efforts are currently underway to control and treat severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide. Despite all efforts, the virus that emerged in Wuhan city has rapidly spread globally and led to a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) due to the lack of approved antiviral therapy. Nevertheless, SARS-CoV-2 has had a significant influence on the evolution of cellular therapeutic approaches. Adoptive immune cell therapy is innovative and offers either promising prophylactic or therapy for patients with moderate-to-severe COVID-19. This approach is aimed at developing safety and providing secure and effective therapy in combination with standard therapy for all COVID-19 infected individuals. Based on the effective results of previous studies on both inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, various immune cell therapies against COVID-19 have been reviewed and discussed. It must be considered that the application of cell therapy for treatment and to eliminate infected respiratory cells could result in excessive inflammation, so this treatment must be used in combination with other treatments, despite its many beneficial efforts.

Keywords: CAR-T cell therapy; COVID-19; DC therapy; Immune cell therapy; MSC therapy; NK therapy; SARS-CoV-2; Treg therapy; Viral specific T cell therapy.

Fig. 1

Schematically strategy for Immune Cell-Based Immunotherapy 19. In immunotherapy, the first step is to mass-produce functional immune cells that can be from recovered individuals and subsequently re-injected to the severely affected patient after performing of expansion procedures in vitro. Injected immune cells, relying on their functional properties, can suppress the process of cytokine storm and reduction of immune cells that results in improving the patient with severe symptoms.