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Review
. 2022 Dec 8;11(12):1501.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens11121501.

Approximations to Diagnosis and Therapy of COVID-19 in Nervous Systems Using Extracellular Vesicles

Karen Rojas  1 , Maritza G Verdugo-Molinares  1 , Andrea G Ochoa-Ruiz  1 , Alejandro Canales  1 , Edwin E Reza-Zaldivar  2 , Areli Limón-Rojas  1 , Alba Adriana Vallejo-Cardona  3
Affiliations
Review

Approximations to Diagnosis and Therapy of COVID-19 in Nervous Systems Using Extracellular Vesicles

Karen Rojas et al. Pathogens. .

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 virus was first identified at the end of December 2019, causing the disease known as COVID-19, which, due to the high degree of contagion, was declared a global pandemic as of 2020. The end of the isolation was in 2022, thanks to the global multidisciplinary work of the massive vaccination campaigns. Even with the current knowledge about this virus and the COVID-19 disease, there are many questions and challenges regarding diagnosis and therapy in the fight against this virus. One of the big problems is the so-called "long COVID", prolonged symptomatology characterized as a multiorgan disorder manifested as brain fog, fatigue, and shortness of breath, which persist chronically after the disease resolution. Therefore, this review proposes using extracellular vesicles (EVs) as a therapeutic or diagnostic option to confront the sequelae of the disease at the central nervous system level. Development: the review of updated knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 is generally addressed as well as the current classification of extracellular vesicles and their proposed use in therapy and diagnosis. Through an analysis of examples, extracellular vesicles are highlighted to learn what happens in the central nervous system during and after COVID-19 and as a therapeutic option. Conclusions: even though there are limitations in the knowledge of the neurological manifestations of COVID-19, it is possible to observe the potential use of extracellular vesicles in therapy or as a diagnostic method and even the importance of their study for the knowledge of the pathophysiology of the disease.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; diagnostic; extracellular vesicles (EVs); therapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Proposed mechanisms by which SARS-CoV-2 invades CNS (1) Direct virus invasion of nervous tissue (2) Inflammation by cytokine storm (3) Taste cells pathway (4) Nasal mucosa pathway. Created with BioRender.com.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Scheme of the use of exosomes for the treatment and diagnosis or detection of "Covid Long". Created with BioRender.com.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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