Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Virol. Sep 25, 2022; 11(5): 252-274
Published online Sep 25, 2022. doi: 10.5501/wjv.v11.i5.252
SARS-CoV-2 infection and diabetes: Pathophysiological mechanism of multi-system organ failure
Bipradas Roy, Sadia Afrin Runa
Bipradas Roy, Department of Physiology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48201, United States
Bipradas Roy, Division of Hypertension and Vascular Research, Department of Internal Medicine, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI 48202, United States
Sadia Afrin Runa, Department of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Gopalganj 8100, Bangladesh
Author contributions: Roy B conceived the review design and wrote the draft; Runa SA revised the manuscript; all authors gave final approval of the version to be published.
Supported by a Predoctoral Fellowship Grant from the American Heart Association, No. 835262 (to Roy B).
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Bipradas Roy, MSc, PhD, Research Assistant, Department of Physiology, Wayne State University, 5374 Scott Hall, 540 E. Canfield, Detroit, MI 48201, United States. biroy@med.wayne.edu
Received: May 18, 2022
Peer-review started: May 18, 2022
First decision: June 16, 2022
Revised: June 25, 2022
Accepted: August 1, 2022
Article in press: August 1, 2022
Published online: September 25, 2022
Abstract

Since the discovery of the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak, a vast majority of studies have been carried out that confirmed the worst outcome of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in people with preexisting health conditions, including diabetes, obesity, hypertension, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases. Likewise, diabetes itself is one of the leading causes of global public health concerns that impose a heavy global burden on public health as well as socio-economic development. Both diabetes and SARS-CoV-2 infection have their independent ability to induce the pathogenesis and severity of multi-system organ failure, while the co-existence of these two culprits can accelerate the rate of disease progression and magnify the severity of the disease. However, the exact pathophysiology of multi-system organ failure in diabetic patients after SARS-CoV-2 infection is still obscure. This review summarized the organ-specific possible molecular mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 and diabetes-induced pathophysiology of several diseases of multiple organs, including the lungs, heart, kidneys, brain, eyes, gastrointestinal system, and bones, and sub-sequent manifestation of multi-system organ failure.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, Diabetes, Neurological dysfunction, Cardiovascular compli-cations, Renal dysfunction, Bone loss

Core Tip: There is no therapeutic approach yet that can eradicate diabetes and its complications from human life, as the etiopathology of diabetes is very complex. Before the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019, it was almost unknown that diabetes is a leading risk factor that could fuel the pathogenesis of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-induced multi-organ dysfunction and subsequent mortality. Additionally, SARS-CoV-2-infected children and young people have been shown to develop diabetes. Therefore, identifying the precise molecular mechanisms of diabetes-induced SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and subsequent manifestation of multi-organ dysfunction may help us to develop drugs that prevent millions of human lives.