Aptamers as promising nanotheranostic tools in the COVID-19 pandemic era.

The emergence of SARS-COV-2, the causative agent of new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has become a pandemic threat. Early and precise detection of the virus is vital for effective diagnosis and treatment. Various testing kits and assays, including nucleic acid detection methods, antigen tests, serological tests, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), have been implemented or are being explored to detect the virus and/or characterize cellular and antibody responses to the infection. However, these approaches have inherent drawbacks such as nonspecificity, high cost, are characterized by long turnaround times for test results, and can be labor-intensive. Also, the circulating SARS-COV-2 variant of concerns, reduced antibody sensitivity and/or neutralization, and possible antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) have warranted the search for alternative potent therapeutics. Aptamers, which are single-stranded oligonucleotides, generated artificially by SELEX (Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) may offer the capacity to generate high-affinity neutralizers and/or bioprobes for monitoring relevant SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19 biomarkers. This article reviews and discusses the prospects of implementing aptamers for rapid point-of-care detection and treatment of SARS-COV-2. We highlight other SARS-COV-2 targets (N protein, spike protein stem-helix), SELEX augmented with competition assays and in silico technologies for rapid discovery and isolation of theranostic aptamers against COVID-19 and future pandemics. It further provides an overview on site-specific bioconjugation approaches, customizable molecular scaffolding strategies, and nanotechnology platforms to engineer these aptamers into ultrapotent blockers, multivalent therapeutics, and vaccines to boost both humoral and cellular immunity against the virus. This article is categorized under: Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Emerging Technologies Diagnostic Tools > Biosensing Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Nanomedicine for Infectious Disease Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Nanomedicine for Respiratory Disease.

Epidemiology, clinical characteristics and treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children: A narrative review.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected millions of people around the world, with most cases recorded among adults. The cases reported among children have been acknowledged to be minimal in comparison to adults. Nevertheless, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been reported to affect children of all ages, including newborns. The symptoms among children have also been identified to be similar to those observed among adults, although paediatric patients have been noted to display a spectrum of clinical features ranging from asymptomatic to moderate symptoms. Despite ample publications on the ongoing pandemic, the literature is only replete with guidelines on treating SARS-CoV-2 infection among older people. In this narrative review, comprehensive updates on the infection in children have been discussed. The latest information on the spread of the disease among children around the world, the clinical features observed among the paediatric population, as well as recommended pharmaceutical treatments of COVID-19 among this special group of patients have been covered. Further, expert consensus statements regarding the management of this highly contagious disease among pregnant women and neonates have been discussed. It is believed that this comprehensive review will provide updated information on the epidemiology and clinical features of the ongoing pandemic among paediatric patients. Additionally, the guidelines for handling SARS-CoV-2 among pregnant women and children, as reviewed in this article, are anticipated to be useful to frontline clinicians battling this fatal disease around the globe.