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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has created an unprecedented threat to public health. The pandemic has been sweeping the globe, impacting more than 200 countries, with more outbreaks still lurking on the horizon. At the time of the writing, no approved drugs or vaccines are available to treat COVID-19 patients, prompting an urgent need to decipher mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis and develop curative treatments. To fight COVID-19, researchers around the world have provided specific tools and molecular information for SARS-CoV-2. These pieces of information can be integrated to aid computational investigations and facilitate clinical research. This paper reviews current knowledge, the current status of drug development and various resources for key steps toward effective treatment of COVID-19, including the phylogenetic characteristics, genomic conservation and interaction data. The final goal of this paper is to provide information that may be utilized in bioinformatics approaches and aid target prioritization and drug repurposing. Several SARS-CoV-2-related tools/databases were reviewed, and a web-portal named OverCOVID (http://bis.zju.edu.cn/overcovid/) is constructed to provide a detailed interpretation of SARS-CoV-2 basics and share a collection of resources that may contribute to therapeutic advances. These information could improve researchers' understanding of SARS-CoV-2 and help to accelerate the development of new antiviral treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I noticed a recently published paper named 'Is acupuncture effective in the treatment of COVID-19 related symptoms? Based on bioinformatics/network topology strategy' with great interest. I am inspired and also have some doubts, which are mainly about the active compounds of acupuncture treating COVID-19. The authors choose only two active compounds, which remains to be elucidated clearly with some criteria description. The 11 300 disease targets of COVID-19 were screened using the terms like the related symptoms, which might be other diseases' manifestations. So the better legends of Figures and Tables should be the terms like COVID-19-related symptoms, instead of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acupuncture is an important part of Chinese medicine that has been widely used in the treatment of inflammatory diseases. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, acupuncture has been used as a complementary treatment for COVID-19 in China. However, the underlying mechanism of acupuncture treatment of COVID-19 remains unclear. Based on bioinformatics/topology, this paper systematically revealed the multi-target mechanisms of acupuncture therapy for COVID-19 through text mining, bioinformatics, network topology, etc. Two active compounds produced after acupuncture and 180 protein targets were identified. A total of 522 Gene Ontology terms related to acupuncture for COVID-19 were identified, and 61 pathways were screened based on the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes. Our findings suggested that acupuncture treatment of COVID-19 was associated with suppression of inflammatory stress, improving immunity and regulating nervous system function, including activation of neuroactive ligand–receptor interaction, calcium signaling pathway, cancer pathway, viral carcinogenesis, Staphylococcus aureus infection, etc. The study also found that acupuncture may have additional benefits for COVID-19 patients with cancer, cardiovascular disease and obesity. Our study revealed for the first time the multiple synergistic mechanisms of acupuncture on COVID-19. Acupuncture may play an active role in the treatment of COVID-19 and deserves further promotion and application. These results may help to solve this pressing problem currently facing the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic and there is an urgent need to discover the therapy for COVID-19. In our original article, we first obtained the target proteins of acupuncture and related target genes of COVID-19 by searching English and Chinese databases, then Gene Ontology biological processes and enrichment analysis were performed on the overlapping targets of acupuncture with COVID-19. Moreover, the compound-target and compound-disease-target network was constructed. This is an innovative attempt to predict the potential benefits of acupuncture treatment for COVID-19. In this letter, we answered reader Zheng's comments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis which results in millions of deaths and causes long-term neurological sequelae, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD).Objective: We aimed to explore the interaction between COVID-19 and AD by integrating bioinformatics to find the biomarkers which lead to AD occurrence and development with COVID-19 and provide early intervention.Methods: The differential expressed genes (DEGs) were found by GSE147507 and GSE132903, respectively. The common genes between COVID-19 and AD were identified. Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and protein-protein interactions (PPI) network analysis were carried out. Hub genes were found by cytoscape. A multivariate logistic regression model was constructed. NetworkAnalyst was used for the analysis of TF-gene interactions, TF-miRNA coregulatory network, and Protein-chemical Interactions.Results: Forty common DEGs for AD and COVID-19 were found. GO and KEGG analysis indicated that the DEGs were enriched in the calcium signal pathway and other pathways. A PPI network was constructed, and 5 hub genes were identified (ITPR1, ITPR3, ITPKB, RAPGEF3, MFGE8). Four hub genes (ITPR1, ITPR3, ITPKB, RAPGEF3) which were considered as important factors in the development of AD that were affected by COVID-19 were shown by nomogram. Utilizing NetworkAnalyst, the interaction network of 4 hub genes and TF, miRNA, common AD risk genes, and known compounds is displayed, respectively.Conclusion: COVID-19 patients are at high risk of developing AD. Vaccination is required. Four hub genes can be considered as biomarkers for prediction and treatment of AD development caused by COVID-19. Compounds with neuroprotective effects can be used as adjuvant therapy for COVID-19 patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]