Complement activation occurs in patients infected with MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, which might be involved in the pathogenesis of acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). In this preprint, Gao et al. identify the host complement activator MASP2 as a target of the N protein of all three viruses. In mice, lung injury induced by SARS-CoV-1 or MERS-CoV N protein was attenuated when its MASP2-binding motif was altered, when MASP2 was genetically knocked out or when the MASP2–N protein interaction was pharmacologically blocked. Preliminary data from patients treated with a blocking antibody to complement component C5a suggest a potential benefit of targeting complement in patients with COVID-19 with severe lung injury.
References
Original article
Gao, T. et al. Highly pathogenic coronavirus N protein aggravates lung injury by MASP-2-mediated complement over-activation. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.29.20041962 (2020)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wilk, C.M. Coronaviruses hijack the complement system. Nat Rev Immunol 20, 350 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-020-0314-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-020-0314-5
This article is cited by
-
Proteomic analysis identifies a signature of disease severity in the plasma of COVID-19 pneumonia patients associated to neutrophil, platelet and complement activation
Clinical Proteomics (2022)
-
Elevated Expression Levels of Lung Complement Anaphylatoxin, Neutrophil Chemoattractant Chemokine IL-8, and RANTES in MERS-CoV-Infected Patients: Predictive Biomarkers for Disease Severity and Mortality
Journal of Clinical Immunology (2021)
-
An update: the emerging evidence of complement involvement in COVID-19
Medical Microbiology and Immunology (2021)
-
Consensus transcriptional regulatory networks of coronavirus-infected human cells
Scientific Data (2020)