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Activation of Melanocortin Receptors as a Potential Strategy to Reduce Local and Systemic Reactions Induced by Respiratory Viruses

The clinical hallmarks of infections caused by critical respiratory viruses consist of pneumonia, which can progress to acute lung injury (ALI), and systemic manifestations including hypercoagulopathy, vascular dysfunction, and endotheliitis. The disease outcome largely depends on the immune respons...

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Autores principales: Lonati, Caterina, Gatti, Stefano, Catania, Anna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7758465/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33362713
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2020.569241
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author Lonati, Caterina
Gatti, Stefano
Catania, Anna
author_facet Lonati, Caterina
Gatti, Stefano
Catania, Anna
author_sort Lonati, Caterina
collection PubMed
description The clinical hallmarks of infections caused by critical respiratory viruses consist of pneumonia, which can progress to acute lung injury (ALI), and systemic manifestations including hypercoagulopathy, vascular dysfunction, and endotheliitis. The disease outcome largely depends on the immune response produced by the host. The bio-molecular mechanisms underlying certain dire consequences of the infection partly arise from an aberrant production of inflammatory molecules, an event denoted as “cytokine storm”. Therefore, in addition to antiviral therapies, molecules able to prevent the injury caused by cytokine excess are under investigation. In this perspective, taking advantage of melanocortin peptides and their receptors, components of an endogenous modulatory system that exerts marked anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory influences, could be an effective therapeutic strategy to control disease evolution. Exploiting the melanocortin system using natural or synthetic ligands can form a realistic basis to counteract certain deleterious effects of respiratory virus infections. The central and peripheral protective actions exerted following melanocortin receptor activation could allow dampening the harmful events that trigger the cytokine storm and endothelial dysfunction while sustaining the beneficial signals required to elicit repair mechanisms. The long standing evidence for melanocortin safety encourages this approach.
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spelling pubmed-77584652020-12-25 Activation of Melanocortin Receptors as a Potential Strategy to Reduce Local and Systemic Reactions Induced by Respiratory Viruses Lonati, Caterina Gatti, Stefano Catania, Anna Front Endocrinol (Lausanne) Endocrinology The clinical hallmarks of infections caused by critical respiratory viruses consist of pneumonia, which can progress to acute lung injury (ALI), and systemic manifestations including hypercoagulopathy, vascular dysfunction, and endotheliitis. The disease outcome largely depends on the immune response produced by the host. The bio-molecular mechanisms underlying certain dire consequences of the infection partly arise from an aberrant production of inflammatory molecules, an event denoted as “cytokine storm”. Therefore, in addition to antiviral therapies, molecules able to prevent the injury caused by cytokine excess are under investigation. In this perspective, taking advantage of melanocortin peptides and their receptors, components of an endogenous modulatory system that exerts marked anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory influences, could be an effective therapeutic strategy to control disease evolution. Exploiting the melanocortin system using natural or synthetic ligands can form a realistic basis to counteract certain deleterious effects of respiratory virus infections. The central and peripheral protective actions exerted following melanocortin receptor activation could allow dampening the harmful events that trigger the cytokine storm and endothelial dysfunction while sustaining the beneficial signals required to elicit repair mechanisms. The long standing evidence for melanocortin safety encourages this approach. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-12-10 /pmc/articles/PMC7758465/ /pubmed/33362713 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2020.569241 Text en Copyright © 2020 Lonati, Gatti and Catania http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Endocrinology
Lonati, Caterina
Gatti, Stefano
Catania, Anna
Activation of Melanocortin Receptors as a Potential Strategy to Reduce Local and Systemic Reactions Induced by Respiratory Viruses
title Activation of Melanocortin Receptors as a Potential Strategy to Reduce Local and Systemic Reactions Induced by Respiratory Viruses
title_full Activation of Melanocortin Receptors as a Potential Strategy to Reduce Local and Systemic Reactions Induced by Respiratory Viruses
title_fullStr Activation of Melanocortin Receptors as a Potential Strategy to Reduce Local and Systemic Reactions Induced by Respiratory Viruses
title_full_unstemmed Activation of Melanocortin Receptors as a Potential Strategy to Reduce Local and Systemic Reactions Induced by Respiratory Viruses
title_short Activation of Melanocortin Receptors as a Potential Strategy to Reduce Local and Systemic Reactions Induced by Respiratory Viruses
title_sort activation of melanocortin receptors as a potential strategy to reduce local and systemic reactions induced by respiratory viruses
topic Endocrinology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7758465/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33362713
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2020.569241
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