Abstract
Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), regarded as a powerful physics technology, displays antimicrobial, antitumor, and even antiviral properties, but the underlying mechanism is rarely studied. In this study, four CAP exposure doses (30, 60, 120, and 240 s) were applied to inactivate a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 like pseudovirus on a stainless steel disk, which comprised spike protein on its membrane and can express a green fluorescent protein. In order to unravel the potential effects of CAP irradiation on pseudovirus, infection assay, optical emission spectra analysis, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, ELISA, and qPCR experiments were carried out. As a result, our study indicated that CAP irradiation can significantly decrease the infectivity of pseudovirus in a dose dependent manner through destroying the cell membrane and further damaging viral RNA, with the molecular weight and conformation of spike receptor binding domain protein unchanged.
Highlights
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the pathogen of COVID-19, and suppressing its transmission is regarded as the key step to control and decrease COVID-19.3 Unlike SARS-CoV-1 and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV, in 2012), SARS-CoV-2 showed lower mortality (2.08%) but a higher infectious rate (2.23%) until May 29, 2021 due to its fast propagation speed
SARS-CoV-2 is composed of 16 non-structural proteins (ORF1ab, ORF3a, ORF7, ORF8, etc.) and four structural proteins, including spike (S) protein, membrane (M) protein, envelope (E) protein, and nucleocapsid (N) protein
The pseudovirus infected 293T cell can express green fluorescent protein (GFP) so that the green fluorescence intensity of each group was measured to evaluate the effects of Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) treatment on pseudovirus infection activity
Summary
At the end of 2019, COronaVIrus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) was first reported in Wuhan city, China, and gradually developed into a global pandemic. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the pathogen of COVID-19, and suppressing its transmission is regarded as the key step to control and decrease COVID-19.3 Unlike SARS-CoV-1 (in 2002) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV, in 2012), SARS-CoV-2 showed lower mortality (2.08%) but a higher infectious rate (2.23%) until May 29, 2021 due to its fast propagation speed (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus2019). Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the pathogen of COVID-19, and suppressing its transmission is regarded as the key step to control and decrease COVID-19.3 Unlike SARS-CoV-1 (in 2002) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV, in 2012), SARS-CoV-2 showed lower mortality (2.08%) but a higher infectious rate (2.23%) until May 29, 2021 due to its fast propagation speed (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus2019). Since the Chinese researchers announced the full RNA genomic sequences of SARS-CoV-2 on January 10, 2020, every research institution, medical company, university, and hospital around the world started to develop vaccines.. Until May 7, 2021, there were six candidate vaccines for emergency using lists (EUL), including Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2), AstraZeneca-SK Bio (AZD1222), Serum Institute of India, Janssen (Ad26.COV2.S), Moderna (mRNA-1273), and Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine released by WHO (https://www.who.int/news/item/07-05-2021who-lists-additional-covid-19-vaccine-for-emergency-use-and-issuesinterim-policy-recommendations). There are more than 100 vaccines under the phase I/II/III/IV clinical trials. On the other hand, many researchers focus on repurposing FDA authorized drugs, such as remdesivir (against MERS and SARS), hydroxychloroquine (HCQ, an antimalarial drug), or lopinavir–ritonavir (treat HIV/AIDS) combination against SARSCoV-2, and the results indicated that these drugs alleviate scitation.org/journal/adv the symptoms (cough, taste disorder, myalgia, fever, dyspnea, headache, etc.) and promote recovery.
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