An overview of the vaccine platforms to combat COVID-19 with a focus on the subunit vaccines.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an emerging virus that has caused the recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) global pandemic. The current approved COVID-19 vaccines have shown considerable efficiency against hospitalization and death. However, the continuation of the pandemic for more than two years and the likelihood of new strain emergence despite the global rollout of vaccination highlight the immediate need for the development and improvement of vaccines.

Radioprotective Role of Vitamins C and E against the Gamma Ray-Induced Damage to the Chemical Structure of Bovine Serum Albumin.

Radioprotective effects of vitamin C and vitamin E as a water-soluble and a lipid-soluble agent, respectively, were investigated at the molecular level during the imposition of gamma radiation-induced structural changes to bovine serum albumin (BSA) at the therapeutic dose of 3 Gy. Secondary and tertiary structural changes of control and irradiated BSA samples were investigated using circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy. The preirradiation tests showed nonspecific and reversible binding of vitamins C and E to BSA.

Doxorubicin-loaded, pH-sensitive Albumin Nanoparticles for Lung Cancer Cell Targeting.

In recent decades, scientific and medical communities have continuously sought new methods and chemistries to improve the treatment of cancer. Among many types of nanoparticles considered as carriers for drug delivery, the protein ones count among the safest. The present study aimed to investigate the physicochemical and biological effects of the supplementation of albumin nanoparticles with doxorubicin (DOX).

Tracking the pipeline: immunoinformatics and the COVID-19 vaccine design.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the amount of data on genomic and proteomic sequences of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) stored in various databases has exponentially grown. A large volume of these data has led to the production of equally immense sets of immunological data, which require rigorous computational approaches to sort through and make sense of. Immunoinformatics has emerged in the recent decades as a field capable of offering this approach by bridging experimental and theoretical immunology with state-of-the-art computational tools.

Comparative molecular dynamics study of the receptor-binding domains in SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV and the effects of mutations on the binding affinity.

Here, we report on a computational comparison of the receptor-binding domains (RBDs) on the spike proteins of severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) and SARS-CoV in free forms and as complexes with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) as their receptor in humans. The impact of 42 mutations discovered so far on the structure and thermodynamics of SARS-CoV-2 RBD was also assessed. The binding affinity of SARS-CoV-2 RBD for ACE2 is higher than that of SARS-CoV RBD.