Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Feb 14, 2021; 27(6): 449-469
Published online Feb 14, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i6.449
Current understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on gastrointestinal disease: Challenges and openings
Tarun Sahu, Arundhati Mehta, Yashwant Kumar Ratre, Akriti Jaiswal, Naveen Kumar Vishvakarma, Lakkakula Venkata Kameswara Subrahmanya Bhaskar, Henu Kumar Verma
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
Processing time: 75 Days and 17 Hours
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.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; Gastrointestinal symptoms; Recommendation; Diagnosis; Therapeutics

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.