Themed collection Coronavirus articles - free to access collection

Brian Pecson and Daniel Gerrity present an Editorial Perspective which focuses on the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on the water industry.

Vincenzo Naddeo and Haizhou Liu present an ‘Editorial Perspective’ on coronavirus in wastewater and discuss the water research needs to combat viral outbreaks.

The flavagline silvestrol is a potential candidate against viral infections including COVID-19.

Recent advances in the design of nano- and biosensors, as well as important challenges and opportunities related to the detection of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 diagnosis, are discussed.

In this review, we summarize and highlight the latest achievements based on nanoparticles in the fight against COVID-19.

This perspective explores the scope of piezo- and pyro-electric wearable sensors towards the early intervention of virus-affected patients, particularly in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Much of the science underpinning the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic lies in the soft matter domain.

The appearance of new and lethal viruses and their potential threat urgently requires innovative antiviral systems.

Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation is one method for decontamination of N-95 filtering facepiece respirators to facilitate reuse during the COVID-19 pandemic. Other techniques include hydrogen peroxide vaporization, microwave-generated steaming, and dry heating.

With its principles discovered more than a hundred years ago the photodynamic inactivation of viruses is now routinely employed in the decontamination of blood products but also investigated for HPV treatment and water disinfection and food safety.

While “avoiding stagnation” has been the mantra of building water experts, support for how this terminology is used is not overly convincing. Carefully nuanced COVID stagnation studies can improve water quality research and communication strategies.

This minireview focusses on the comprehensive study of SARS-CoV-2 specific aptamers and aptamer-based biosensors (optical and electrochemical), and their role and future perspectives in COVID-19 diagnosis.

The emergence of a pandemic scale respiratory illness (COVID-19) and the lack of the world's readiness to prevent its spread resulted in an unprecedented rise of biomedical diagnostic industries, as they took lead to provide efficient diagnostic solutions for COVID-19.

Molecular biology and nanotechnology based analytical methods have proven to be promising diagnostic tools for the rapid diagnosis of COVID-19.

Biomaterials in company with bioengineered tissue models enables scientists to develop the more precise disease models and find better solutions in infectious respiratory disease treatment.

Multiplex lateral flow immunoassays for outstanding POCT of infectious diseases.

Biosensors function as rapid, sensitive and specific diagnostic tools for various viral infectious diseases.

Recent developments in the biological activities of polyoxometalates (metal-oxide cluster anions) are discussed from the chemotherapeutic point of view for a novel inorganic drug.

Different kind of methods utilized in expediting drug repurposing.

Nano-scale interactions are key to understand the SARS-CoV-2 infectious potential and bio–nano sciences can provide hints on viral particles behaviour.

We cover diverse methodologies, computational approaches, and case studies illustrating the ongoing efforts to develop viable drug candidates for treatment of COVID-19.

We propose a consideration of Avigan-loaded nano-emulsions as a promising nano-based delivery system for the treatment of COVID-19.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection is still spreading at an alarming rate and has caused huge loss of life and economic damage worldwide.

We describe updated information on the various vaccines available over the last two decades, along with recent progress in developing 63 diverse vaccines against SARS-CoV-2.

In this review promising targets for drug development against SARS-CoV-2 and anti-viral activities of some of the known natural products (including plant secondary metabolites) are discussed.

Schematic representation of use of biomaterials in tissue regeneration for SARS-CoV-2-affected organs.

Fighting COVID-19 with high affinity reagents: this review article summarizes the discovery of several classes of (bio) molecules targeting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

Chemical biology strategies can play important roles in studying the complexity of SARS-CoV-2–host interactions at molecular level detail.

SARS-CoV-2 virus invades the host through angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors by decreasing the ACE2 expression of the host.

Summary of the latest research progress on detection methods of SARS-CoV-2, providing a reference to develop rapid and accurate diagnostic strategies for COVID-19.

Since the coronaviruses that cause COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-1 share 80% structural similarity, we present a comprehensive review of the diverse molecular inhibitors of SARS-CoV-1. This will help to accelerate drug discovery for deadly coronavirus diseases.

A schematic representation of different methods to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The global outbreak of COVID-19 viral infection is associated with the absence of specific drug(s) for fighting this viral infection.

Potential drug candidates derived from natural sources are posed for the development of anti-SARS CoV-2 therapeutics.

Herpes Simplex Virus type 1 (HSV-1) is a nuclear replicating enveloped virus.

Exploiting the power of nature to fight viral infections. This review describes the concept of direct- and host-acting natural products with broad-spectrum antiviral activities and provides promising examples derived from plants, fungi, bacteria and marine organisms.

This review covers the increasing research efforts of the past decade, focusing on the structure, function and druggability of influenza NA, and its inhibition by natural products. Latest developments in theoretical and experimental research on NA for lead discovery strategies from nature are presented.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to escalate globally and acquires new mutations, accurate diagnostic technologies continue to play a vital role in controlling and understanding the epidemiology of this disease.

This paper summarises the latest research advances and commercial products in POCT-based SARS-CoV-2 detection methods.

Active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are increasingly being identified as contaminants of emerging concern (CECs).

SARS-CoV-2 and humoral response determinations to understand and control the spread of COVID-19.

RNA-based viruses likely make up the highest pandemic threat among all known pathogens in about the last 100 years, since the Spanish Flu of 1918 with 50 M deaths up to COVID-19.

This review provides a comprehensive look at whether a pandemic enveloped virus would pose challenges for the wastewater and drinking water industries.

An ideal approach to real-time disease detection and surveillance.

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles can be tailored to interact specifically with SARS-CoV-2 nsp1 protein, forming, according to NMR studies, a stable complex, which structure was elucidated based on a molecular modeling approach.

In this study, we enhanced the color changes and sensitivity of colorimetric SARS-CoV-2 RT-LAMP assays based on triarylmethane dyes. We determined a mechanism for the color changes and obtained sensitivities of 10 RNA copies per microliter.

A rapid, low cost sensor for Covid-19 was developed using a perfluorodecanthiol layer and ACE2.

Colorimetric LAMP for COVID-19 intensified diagnostics: a simple and quantitative method comparable in diagnostic performance to RT-qPCR.

Wastewater analysis provides insights into population lifestyle and health status during the coronavirus pandemic.

Sulfated polysaccharide from sea cucumber (SCSP), fucoidan from brown algae, and iota-carrageenan from red algae show inhibitory activities against SARS-CoV-2.

Development of an identification methodology with PS-MS as a sensitive and rapid technique to obtain vastly different chemical changes in COVID-19 infection.

Unveiling the nanomechanical stability of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein

Using a combination of enhanced sampling molecular dynamics techniques and non-equilibrium alchemical transformations, we have shown that hydroxychloroquine may act as a mild inhibitor of important functional proteins for SARS-CoV2 replication.

The continued emergence and spread of infectious agents is of great concern, and systems biology approaches to infectious disease research can advance our understanding of host–pathogen relationships and facilitate the development of new therapies and vaccines.

Multicolor silver nanoparticles enable multiplexed detection of dengue, yellow fever, and Ebola virus proteins in a single lateral flow strip.

The SARS-CoV NTPase/helicase being able to unwind both RNA and DNA duplexes, is an attractive target for anti-viral drug design. A series of bismuth complexes were synthesized and characterized, and exhibit the inhibition against the SARS helicase ATPase and duplex-unwinding activities at micromolar concentrations.

A structural ensemble derived from cryo-electron microscopy reveals a cryptic pocket site in intermediate states along the opening pathway of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

COVID-19 glucose test: translating SARS-CoV-2 detection into a glucose test is achieved by incorporating target-responsive rolling circle amplification and a CRISPR-based collateral cleavage module with a portable glucose meter.

Antibody therapeutics and vaccines are among our last resort to end the raging COVID-19 pandemic.

Quantum chemical calculations investigated molecular recognition of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoproteins including its N501Y variant for ACE2 and antibody. Hot spot and epitope analyses revealed key residues to design drugs and antibodies against COVID-19.

We provide an unsupervised adaptive sampling strategy capable of producing μs-timescale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of large biosystems using many-body polarizable force fields (PFFs).

Inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease by a Michael acceptor is studied using classical and QM/MM simulations. Results point out to a transition state with a key water molecule stabilizing the catalytic dyad and assisting the protonation step.

QM/MM simulations identify the mechanism of reaction of N3, a covalent peptidyl inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 main protease. Modelling of two novel proposed compounds, B1 and B2, suggests that reversibility of covalent inhibition could be tailored.

The main protease (M^pro) of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an attractive target for antiviral therapeutics.

A mass spectrometry-based two-step isotope labeling-lysine reactivity profiling strategy is developed to probe the molecular details of protein–protein interactions and evaluate the conformational interventions by small-molecule active compounds.

The authors unravel the molecular action principle of nafamostat and camostat, two potential COVID-19 drugs targeting the human protein TMPRSS2.

Thiol-reactive inhibitors for the cellular entry of cyclic oligochalcogenide (COC) transporters and SARS-CoV-2 spike pseudo-lentivirus are reported.

A versatile aptamer-assisted proximity ligation system improves diagnosis of COVID-19, and allows the evaluation of potential neutralizing aptamers.

By integrating algebraic topology and deep learning, we provide a reliable ranking of binding affinities, binding site analysis, and fragment decomposition for 137 SARS-CoV-2 main protease inhibitors.

The molecular mechanism of the proteolysis reaction catalyzed by SARS-CoV-2 M^pro, one of the enzymes essential for the replication process of the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, is described using computational QM/MM methods.