This study is led by Dr. Chunying Chen (National Center for Nanoscience and Technology), Dr. Yechun Xu (Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Dr. Chengqi Yi (Peking University) and Dr. Guanbo Wang (Peking University).
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has raised global concern on public health. There are major challenges ahead to develop new therapeutics and vaccines for difficult-to-target pathogens, for which urgently need a better understanding of protective immunity. The development of high-throughput sequencing, mass spectrometry, computer science and algorithms provide us with a comprehensive and systematic picture of life processes, enhance our understanding of human immunity and diseases.
In this study, the researchers present an up-to-date overview of the latest applications of multi-omics technologies in strategies addressing COVID-19. Firstly, the emerging multi-omics technologies, including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, epigenomics and metallomics, have helped understand the structural and molecular features of the virus. Then, multi-omics technologies have played a key role in assisting the screening of antiviral drugs, the characterization of drug antiviral activities, and the study of the mechanism of action of antiviral drugs. In addition, many multi-omics approaches, including glycomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, etc. provide potential value in finding the characteristics of pathogens and elucidating host responses to vaccines, which can ultimately lead to a roadmap for vaccine design.
This review is aiming to provide suggestions towards the development of highly effective therapeutics (antibodies and small molecular drugs) and vaccines, which is particularly remarkable in chemistry, material and immunology science.
