Curcumin, an Inhibitor of PAK1, Potential Treatment for COVID-19

Abstract

On 31st December 2019, 27 cases of pneumonia with unknown etiology were recognized in Wuhan City, Hubei province in China. These patients had clinical symptoms including dyspnea, dry cough, fever, and bilateral lung infiltrates on imaging 1 . However, some patients had different fatal complications such as septic shock, organ failure, severe pneumonia, pulmonary edema, and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) 2 . The ARDS is an immunopathologic event. The major mechanism of ARDS is an uncontrolled systemic inflammatory response subsequently releasing pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukins (IL), interferons (IFN), chemokines, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)- followed by a cytokine storm 3,4 . The agent that causes this status was identified from throat swab samples by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC) on 7 th January 2020 5 . It named, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by the Coronavirus Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses 6 , and coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) by the World Health Organization (WHO) 5 . On 30 th January 2020, the WHO reported the Chinese prevalence of COVID-19 to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern 7 .