Abstract
SARS-CoV-2 and HIV are zoonotic viruses that rapidly reached pandemic scale, causing global losses and fear. The COVID-19 and AIDS pandemics ignited massive efforts worldwide to develop antiviral strategies and characterize viral architectures, biological and immunological properties, and clinical outcomes. Although both viruses have a comparable appearance as enveloped viruses with positive-stranded RNA and envelope spikes mediating cellular entry, the entry process, downstream biological and immunological pathways, clinical outcomes, and disease courses are strikingly different. This review provides a systemic comparison of both viruses’ structural and functional characteristics, delineating their distinct strategies for efficient spread.
Highlights
SARS-CoV-2 and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) each rapidly became and continue to be considerable global health concerns
Since HIV-1 is responsible for >95% of global HIV infections and HIV-2 has remained largely restricted to Western Africa [4], this review focuses on HIV-1
HIV-1 immune escape is a constant factor in almost every HIV-1-infected individual, whereas SARS-CoV-2 immune escape is rare and seems to occur preferably in immunocompromised individuals with prolonged viral replication and fostered by treatment with monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) or convalescent plasma (Figure 6) [293,294,295,296,297]
Summary
SARS-CoV-2 and HIV each rapidly became and continue to be considerable global health concerns. Unparalleled scientific efforts enabled characterization of these viruses and their resulting diseases in record time, which has led to rapid development of public health measures and antiviral strategies. Both viruses have elementary similarities, being enveloped viruses with a positive (+) single-stranded (ss) RNA genome. Preventive and therapeutic approaches that were studied or established for HIV have been tested against SARS-CoV-2 including vaccination strategies, reverse vaccinology, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), and investigational or approved anti-HIV drugs [1,2,3]. This review illustrates the fundamental similarities and differences of SARS-CoV-2 and HIV to further our understanding of their biological and clinical characteristics and support the development of antiviral strategies against current and future viral outbreaks. >200 vaccine trials ongoing or completed animal models: neutralizing antibodies; human vaccine trial (RV144): ADCC, low plasma anti-Env IgA/IgG, poly-functional B cell responses, non-neutralizing V2 antibodies a End of 2019; b June 2021
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