Viruses and Complement

Dear colleagues,

There are two major topics to be considered in this Special Issue: on the one hand the role that complement may play in providing immunity to viruses and, on the other, the role it may play in the pathogenesis of viral disease.

It is generally considered from the study of complement deficiencies that complement plays no major part in resistance to viruses. It is therefore surprising how many viruses express proteins that inhibit complement and understanding the role of these factors is of interest.

The role of complement in pathogenesis is well established. The canonical example is Dengue where a second infection by a different serotype can give rise to dengue haemorrhagic fever which is due to a greatly enhanced infection produced by non-neutralising antibody giving rise to the release of large amounts of virus which form immune complexes give massive complement activation. There are other diseases where similar mechanisms may play a part.

It is during the present pandemic of Covid 19 a topic of great interest to understand the role of complement in  the severe forms of this disease. A very unusual finding has been reported (Gao et al. 2020) that the nucleoprotein of the virus can bind MASP-2 of the lectin pathway. Further mostly reviews on the interaction of SARS-CoV2 and complement have been published. Preliminary results of anti-complement therapy clinical trial (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04288713) suggests that complement may indeed play a significant role in this disease.

This Special Issue is dealing with the interaction of several viruses and complement, the role of the latter in pathogenesis, possibly leading to prevention of disease, including aspects of complement evasion mechanisms.

In a follow-up, when all manuscripts have been accepted, a description and appreciation of all the contributions will be added here.

Prof. Dr. Reinhard Würzner
Prof. Dr. Sir Peter Lachmann Ϯ
(Ϯ Peter Lachmann 23.12.31-25.12.20 – a personal tribute to an inspiring mentor, same issue)
Guest Editors

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