COVID-19 surveillance in wastewater: An epidemiological tool for the monitoring of SARS-CoV-2.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has prompted a lot of questions globally regarding the range of information about the virus's possible routes of transmission, diagnostics, and therapeutic tools. Worldwide studies have pointed out the importance of monitoring and early surveillance techniques based on the identification of viral RNA in wastewater. These studies indicated the presence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in human feces, which is shed via excreta including mucus, feces, saliva, and sputum. Subsequently, they get dumped into wastewater, and their presence in wastewater provides a possibility of using it as a tool to help prevent and eradicate the virus. Its monitoring is still done in many regions worldwide and serves as an early "warning signal"; however, a lot of limitations of wastewater surveillance have also been identified.

The Breadth of Bacteriophages Contributing to the Development of the Phage-Based Vaccines for COVID-19: An Ideal Platform to Design the Multiplex Vaccine.

Phages are highly ubiquitous biological agents, which means they are ideal tools for molecular biology and recombinant DNA technology. The development of a phage display technology was a turning point in the design of phage-based vaccines. Phages are now recognized as universal adjuvant-free nanovaccine platforms. Phages are well-suited for vaccine design owing to their high stability in harsh conditions and simple and inexpensive large-scale production. The aim of this review is to summarize the overall breadth of the antiviral therapeutic perspective of phages contributing to the development of phage-based vaccines for COVID-19. We show that phage vaccines induce a strong and specific humoral response by targeted phage particles carrying the epitopes of SARS-CoV-2. Further, the engineering of the T4 bacteriophage by CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) presents phage vaccines as a valuable platform with potential capabilities of genetic plasticity, intrinsic immunogenicity, and stability.

COVID-19 surveillance in wastewater: An epidemiological tool for the monitoring of SARS-CoV-2

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has prompted a lot of questions globally regarding the range of information about the virus's possible routes of transmission, diagnostics, and therapeutic tools. Worldwide studies have pointed out the importance of monitoring and early surveillance techniques based on the identification of viral RNA in wastewater. These studies indicated the presence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in human feces, which is shed via excreta including mucus, feces, saliva, and sputum. Subsequently, they get dumped into wastewater, and their presence in wastewater provides a possibility of using it as a tool to help prevent and eradicate the virus. Its monitoring is still done in many regions worldwide and serves as an early "warning signal”;however, a lot of limitations of wastewater surveillance have also been identified.

Chapter 18 - Polyketides and SARS-CoV-2

Historically, antiviral drugs have been mined from natural products, including polyketides. Polyketides are produced by various plants, microorganisms, and marine organisms as secondary metabolites. They are considered potential therapeutic antiviral compounds to treat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Preciously, polyketides showed significant antiviral activity in vitro against A59 coronavirus: Herpes Simplex Virus 1 (HSV1) and Poliovirus 1. Several polyketide compounds such as adipostatin, bilobol, onnamide, dihydro-onnamide, and pseudo-onnamide showed promising anti-SARS-CoV-2 by binding with main protease (Mpro) that play a key role in the SARS-CoV-2 replication and transcription. Interestingly, according to the molecular dynamic simulation studies, all of them were stable at the Mpro binding site. The preclinical and clinical studies of those compounds/congeners or structurally related modified members are attributed to their flexibility in chemical synthesis. The diverse structural modifications of SARS-CoV-2 can be correlated using the structure–activity relationship (RAS) that will pave the way to develop promising antiviral drugs to reduce the burden of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.