Coronaviruses pathogenesis, comorbidities and multi-organ damage - A review

Human coronaviruses, especially COVID-19, is an emerging pandemic infectious disease with high morbidity and mortality. Coronaviruses are associated with comorbidities, along with the symptoms of it. SARS-CoV-2 is one of the highly pathogenic coronaviruses that causes a high death rate compared to the SARS-CoV and MERS. In this review, we focused on the mechanism of coronavirus with comorbidities and impairment in multi-organ function. The main dysfunction upon coronavirus infection is damage to alveolar and acute respiratory failure. It is associated with the other organ damage such as cardiovascular risk via an increased level of hypertension through ACE2, gastrointestinal dysfunction, chronic kidney disease, diabetes mellitus, liver dysfunction, lung injury, CNS risk, ocular risks such as chemosis, conjunctivitis, and conjunctival hyperemia, cancer risk, venous thromboembolism, tuberculosis, aging, and cardiovascular dysfunction and reproductive risk. Along with this, we have discussed the immunopathology and coronaviruses at a molecular level and therapeutic approaches for the coronavirus infection. The comorbidities and multi-organ failure of COVID-19 have been explained at a molecular level along with the base of the SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. This review would help us to understand the comorbidities associated with the coronaviruses with multi-organ damage.

New molecular and biochemical insights of doxorubicin-induced hepatotoxicity

Chemotherapeutic antibiotic doxorubicin belongs to the anthracycline class, slaughters not only the cancer cells but also non-cancerous cells even in the non-targeted organs thereby resulting in the toxicity. The liver is primarily involved in the process of detoxification and this mini-review we focused mainly to investigate the molecular mechanisms heading hepatotoxicity caused due to doxorubicin administration. The alterations in the doxorubicin treated liver tissue include vacuolation of hepatocytes, degeneration of hepatocyte cords, bile duct hyperplasia and focal necrosis. About the literature conducted, hepatotoxicity caused by doxorubicin has been explained by estimating the levels of liver serum biomarkers, ROS production, antioxidant enzymes, lipid peroxidation, and mitochondrial dysfunction. The liver serum biomarkers such as ALT and AST, elated levels of free radicals inducing oxidative stress characterized by a surge in Nrf-2, FOXO-1 and HO-1 genes and diminution of anti-oxidant activity characterized by a decline in SOD, GPx, and CAT genes. The augmented levels of SGOT, SGPT, LDH, creatine kinase, direct and total bilirubin levels also reveal the toxicity in the hepatic tissue due to doxorubicin treatment. The molecular insight of hepatotoxicity is mainly due to the production of ROS, ameliorated oxidative stress and inflammation, deteriorated mitochondrial production and functioning, and enhanced apoptosis. Certain substances such as extracts from medicinal plants, natural products, and chemical substances have been shown to produce an alleviating effect against the doxorubicin-induced hepatotoxicity are also discussed.