Role of pyroptosis in severe COVID-19 / 中国药理学通报

ABSTRACT

Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infec¬tious disease endangering the respirator)' traet and multiple or¬gans of the whole body caused by severe aeute respirator)' syn¬drome coronavirus 2 ( SARS-CoV-2).More than 200 million people in the world have been infected with the disease, which is an unprecedented global plague.Most patients with C0VID-19 only show mild symptoms with a good prognosis, but about 20% of them may develop into severe cases and eause serious compli-cations, including acute respirator)' distress syndrome ( ARDS) , systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) , cytokine re¬lease syndrome (CRS) , etc.Pyroptosis is a kind of programmed cell death characterized by significant inflammatory response.It is often mediated by inflammatory caspase and the gasdermin family of membrane perforating proteins is the final effector mol¬ecules, resulting in cell membrane swelling and rupture to death, accompanied by the release of a large number of pro-in¬flammatory cytokines (such as IL-lp and IL-18, etc).Pyropto- sis affects the occurrence, progression and treatment of many diseases due to its inflammatory and morphological characteris¬tics, and also plays an important role in severe COVID-19.Therefore, drugs that target key molecules in the pyroapoptotic pathway could he a promising breakthrough for treating severe COVID-19.This article reviews the role of pyroptosis in severe COVID-19 complications ARDS and CHS.