Sahu T, Mehta A, Ratre YK, Jaiswal A, Vishvakarma NK, Bhaskar LVKS, Verma HK. Current understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on gastrointestinal disease: Challenges and openings. World J Gastroenterol 2021; 27(6): 449-469 [PMID: 33642821 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i6.449]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Henu Kumar Verma, PhD, Research Scientist, Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Lab, Institute of Experimental Endocrinology and Oncology CNR, via Pansini 5, Naples, Campania 80131, Italy. henu.verma@yahoo.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Tarun Sahu, Akriti Jaiswal, Department of Physiology, All India Institute of Medical Science, Raipur 492001, Chhattisgarh, India
Arundhati Mehta, Yashwant Kumar Ratre, Naveen Kumar Vishvakarma, Department of Biotechnology, Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya, Bilaspur 495001, Chhattisgarh, India
Lakkakula Venkata Kameswara Subrahmanya Bhaskar, Department of Zoology, Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya, Bilaspur 495001, Chhattisgarh, India
Henu Kumar Verma, Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Lab, Institute of Experimental Endocrinology and Oncology CNR, Naples, Campania 80131, Italy
Author contributions: Verma HK contributed to the conceptualization, investigation and supervision; Verma HK and Bhaskar LVKS contributed to the methodology; Verma HK and Vishvakarma NK contributed to the software; Sahu T, Mehta A, Jaiswal A and Ratre YK contributed to the article search and writing the original draft; Sahu T, Ratre YK, Verma HK, Vishvakarma NK and Bhaskar LVKS contributed to the writing, reviewing, and editing of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Henu Kumar Verma, PhD, Research Scientist, Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Lab, Institute of Experimental Endocrinology and Oncology CNR, via Pansini 5, Naples, Campania 80131, Italy. henu.verma@yahoo.com
Received: November 21, 2020 Peer-review started: November 21, 2020 First decision: December 3, 2020 Revised: December 28, 2020 Accepted: January 8, 2021 Article in press: January 8, 2021 Published online: February 14, 2021
Abstract
The novel coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is caused by a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus which belongs to the Coronaviridae family. In March 2019 the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was a pandemic. COVID-19 patients typically have a fever, dry cough, dyspnea, fatigue, and anosmia. Some patients also report gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, including diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain, as well as liver enzyme abnormalities. Surprisingly, many studies have found severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral RNA in rectal swabs and stool specimens of asymptomatic COVID-19 patients. In addition, viral receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 and transmembrane protease serine-type 2, were also found to be highly expressed in gastrointestinal epithelial cells of the intestinal mucosa. Furthermore, SARS-CoV-2 can dynamically infect and replicate in both GI and liver cells. Taken together these results indicate that the GI tract is a potential target of SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, the present review summarizes the vital information available to date on COVID-19 and its impact on GI aspects.
Core Tip: The landscape of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is evolving dramatically, with new information increasing at an alarming rate. It is a challenge to make sense of these data and to interpret what is crucial and high-quality evidence. In this critical circumstance, in-depth work is highly important for the future treatment and management of the disease. In this review, we summarize the vital information available to date on COVID-19 and its impact on gastrointestinal aspects.
