Hard Nanomaterials in Time of Viral Pandemics

• Published in: ACS nano Vol. 14; no. 8; pp. 9364 - 9388
• Main Authors: Reina, Giacomo, Peng, Shiyuan, Jacquemin, Lucas, Andrade, Andrés Felipe, Bianco, Alberto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 25-08-2020
• Subjects: Adaptive Immunity; Antiviral Agents - therapeutic use; Betacoronavirus - drug effects; Betacoronavirus - physiology; Betacoronavirus - ultrastructure; Chemical Sciences; Coronavirus Infections - epidemiology; Coronavirus Infections - therapy; Coronavirus Infections - virology; COVID-19; Drug Delivery Systems; Fullerenes - therapeutic use; Host Microbial Interactions - drug effects; Humans; Immunity, Innate; Medicinal Chemistry; Metal Nanoparticles - therapeutic use; Models, Biological; Nanostructures - therapeutic use; Nanotechnology; Pandemics; Pneumonia, Viral - epidemiology; Pneumonia, Viral - therapy; Pneumonia, Viral - virology; Reactive Oxygen Species - therapeutic use; Review; SARS-CoV-2; Virus Internalization - drug effects; vaccine; nanoparticles; surface chemistry; antiviral; immune system; phototherapy; biomaterials; virucidal
• ISSN: 1936-0851; 1936-086X
• DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c04117

The SARS-Cov-2 pandemic has spread worldwide during 2020, setting up an uncertain start of this decade. The measures to contain infection taken by many governments have been extremely severe by imposing home lockdown and industrial production shutdown, making this the biggest crisis since the second world war. Additionally, the continuous colonization of wild natural lands may touch unknown virus reservoirs, causing the spread of epidemics. Apart from SARS-Cov-2, the recent history has seen the spread of several viral pandemics such as H2N2 and H3N3 flu, HIV, and SARS, while MERS and Ebola viruses are considered still in a prepandemic phase. Hard nanomaterials (HNMs) have been recently used as antimicrobial agents, potentially being next-generation drugs to fight viral infections. HNMs can block infection at early (disinfection, entrance inhibition) and middle (inside the host cells) stages and are also able to mitigate the immune response. This review is focused on the application of HNMs as antiviral agents. In particular, mechanisms of actions, biological outputs, and limitations for each HNM will be systematically presented and analyzed from a material chemistry point-of-view. The antiviral activity will be discussed in the context of the different pandemic viruses. We acknowledge that HNM antiviral research is still at its early stage, however, we believe that this field will rapidly blossom in the next period.