Complement Technology Expected to Treat COVID-19

At present, the global epidemic of COVID-19 is still severe. The prevention and treatment of COVID-19 have become the research focus of academia and the pharmaceutical industry.

In addition to the popular studies of COVID-19 neutralizing antibodies, a large number of clinical data has demonstrated that COVID-19 patients are often accompanied by an over-activation of the complement system, which induces a cytokine storm, leading to respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), or more severe multi-organ failure.

Since over-activation of the complement system is the trigger for a series of subsequent symptoms of COVID-19, interventions targeting the complement system can be applied to develop new therapeutics.

Complement C5a and its receptor C5aR1 is a focus of attention. The article "Association of COVID-19 inflammation with activation of the C5a-C5aR1 axis" published in Nature reveals the association of COVID-19 with activation of the C5a-C5aR1 axis. The study demonstrated that inhibition of complement activity by inhibiting C5a-C5aR1 helps the immune system to restore normal function and better perform the body's own antiviral mechanisms in the state of viral infection. For this reason, scientists have done a lot of research on the main effector molecules in the complement system. The C5AR1 antibody, a receptor of complement component C5a, is one of the most promising ones, and a number of targeted drugs based on it have been in the clinical stage.

Complement technology has attracted much attention in recent years. At present, four targets of the complement system, C5a, C3, C5 and C5AR1, have been studied against COVID-19.

The complement system is a multimolecular system consisting of more than 30 soluble proteins, membrane-bound proteins and complement receptors. As an important component of the human body's natural immunity complement.

When involved in defense, the complement system rapidly produces a large number of complement proteins to respond to and detect threats, which plays an important role in eliminating the invasion of foreign antigens and maintaining the balance of the internal environment of the body. However, when proteins of the complement system are expressed abnormally, it can cause diseases.

Therefore, on the one hand, the complement system can be involved in defense mechanisms against infection. On the other hand, it is a mediator of immunopathological processes that cause tissue damage, inflammatory reactions and allergic reactions.

In recent years, scientific studies have increasingly uncovered the role of the complement system as a facilitator in a variety of diseases (e.g., vasculitis, lupus nephritis, cancer, and retinal diseases). Targeting components of the complement system for drug development has also emerged as a new idea for disease treatment.

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