Pulmonary macrophages and SARS-Cov2 infection

Abstract

The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led to the largest global pandemic in living memory, with between 4.5 and 15M deaths globally from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This has led to an unparalleled global, collaborative effort to understand the pathogenesis of this devastating disease using state-of-the-art technologies. A consistent feature of severe COVID-19 is dys- regulation of pulmonary macrophages, cells that under normal physiological conditions play vital roles in maintaining lung homeostasis and immunity. In this article, we will discuss a selection of the pivotal findings examining the role of monocytes and mac- rophages in SARS-CoV-2 infection and place this in context of recent advances made in understanding the fundamental immunobiology of these cells to try to understand how key homeostatic cells come to be a central pathogenic component of severe COVID-19 and key cells to target for therapeutic gain.

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.ircmb.2022.01.001

Repository URI

https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/3bf15cc7-9991-469d-9ff0-2a63892930f3