MECHANISMS IN ENDOCRINOLOGY: Vitamin D and COVID-19.

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic has generated an explosion of interest both in the mechanisms of infection leading to dissemination and expression of this disease, and in potential risk factors that may have a mechanistic basis for disease propagation or control. Vitamin D has emerged as a factor that may be involved in these two areas. The focus of this article is to apply our current understanding of vitamin D as a facilitator of immunocompetence both with regard to innate and adaptive immunity and to consider how this may relate to COVID-19 disease. There are also intriguing potential links to vitamin D as a factor in the cytokine storm that portends some of the most serious consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection, such as the acute respiratory distress syndrome. Moreover, cardiac and coagulopathic features of COVID-19 disease deserve attention as they may also be related to vitamin D. Finally, we review the current clinical data associating vitamin D with SARS-CoV-2 infection, a putative clinical link that at this time must still be considered hypothetical.

• Authors: John P Bilezikian, Daniel Bikle, Martin Hewison, Marise Lazaretti-Castro, Anna Maria Formenti, Aakriti Gupta, Mahesh V Madhavan, Nandini Nair, Varta Babalyan, Nicholas Hutchings, Nicola Napoli, Domenico Accili, Neil Binkley, Donald W Landry, Andrea Giustina
• Journal: European journal of endocrinology (Eur J Endocrinol) Vol. 183 Issue 5 Pg. R133-R147 (Nov 2020) ISSN: 1479-683X [Electronic] England
• PMID: 32755992 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Review)

Chemical References

• Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides
• Defensins
• Vitamin D
• 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D
• Cathelicidins

Topics

• Adaptive Immunity (immunology)
• Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides (immunology)
• Autophagy (immunology)
• Betacoronavirus
• COVID-19
• Coronavirus Infections (immunology)
• Cytokine Release Syndrome (immunology)
• Defensins (immunology)
• Humans
• Immunity, Innate (immunology)
• Immunocompetence (immunology)
• Lung (immunology)
• Pandemics
• Pneumonia, Viral (immunology)
• SARS-CoV-2
• T-Lymphocytes (immunology)
• T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory (immunology)
• Th1 Cells (immunology)
• Th17 Cells (immunology)
• Th2 Cells (immunology)
• Vitamin D (analogs & derivatives, immunology)
• Cathelicidins