Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In the manuscript ID: ijms-894477 “Obesity and COVID-19: Molecular mechanisms linking both pandemics” the authors fully summarized a growing body of research about the correlation between obesity and the Covid-19 disease.

The authors report the recent literature and describe the different receptors and molecular mechanisms present in healthy adipose tissue and the increased level of CD147, ACE2 and DPP4 expression in obesity. Moreover, the obesity-associated aspects, including dysfunctional immune system, deregulated metabolism and systemic chronic inflammation accompanied by cytokine storm are well reported and discuss.

In this review, the basic concepts and problems regarding the state of the art understanding of Covid-19 related issues are appropriately summarized.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

thanks for your kind evaluation of our review article.

Reviewer 2 Report

Ritter et al. in their review “Obesity and COVID-19: Molecular mechanisms linking both pandemics” summarized recent studies and have addressed the impact of obesity on COVID-19 in terms of hospitalization, severity, mortality and patient outcome. In particular, the authors discussed the potential molecular mechanisms whereby the obesity contributes to the pathogenesis of COVID-19 e.g. deregulation of immune response, chronic inflammation, dysfunctional MSCs in adipose tissue and most strikingly overexpression of receptors and proteases for the SARS-CoV-2 by this tissue. The authors conclude that individuals with obesity belong to the COVID-19 susceptible population requiring more protective measures.

This is really a very comprehensive review with the most recent data on the the COVID-19 in obese patients. In particular, the authors focused on molecular mechanisms underlying the infection of the cells with the SARS-CoV-2. Overall, the authors presented these data in an elegant and understandable way for the broader readership.

Minor issues

In order to be more accurate the authors should update the numbers of patients with COVID-19, because they change every day.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

thanks for your kind words about our review article,

we have updated the COVID-19 patients numbers as suggested.