With the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2002, the middle east respiratory syndrome CoV (MERS-CoV) in 2012 and the recently discovered SARS-CoV-2 in December 2019, the 21st first century has so far faced the outbreak of three major coronaviruses (CoVs). In particular, SARS-CoV-2 spread rapidly over the globe affecting nearly 20.000.000 people up to date. Recent evidences pointing towards mutations within the viral spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2 that are considered the cause for this rapid spread and currently around 200 clinical trials are running to find a treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infections. Nanomedicine, the application of nanocarriers to deliver drugs specifically to a target sites, has been applied for different diseases, such as cancer but also in viral infections. Nanocarriers can be designed to encapsulate vaccines and deliver them towards antigen presenting cells or function as antigen-presenting carriers themselves. Furthermore, drugs can be encapsulated into such carriers to directly target them to infected cells. In particular, virus-mimicking nanoparticles (NPs) such as self-assembled viral proteins, virus-like particles or liposomes, are able to replicate the infection mechanism and can not only be used as delivery system but also to study viral infections and related mechanisms. This review will provide a detailed description of the composition and replication strategy of CoVs, an overview of the therapeutics currently evaluated in clinical trials against SARS-CoV-2 and will discuss the potential of NP-based vaccines, targeted delivery of therapeutics using nanocarriers as well as using NPs to further investigate underlying biological processes in greater detail.

中文翻译：

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针对冠状病毒的纳米医学策略

随着2002年严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒（SARS-CoV）、2012年中东呼吸综合征冠状病毒（MERS-CoV）以及2019年12月最近发现的SARS-CoV-2，21世纪迄今为止面临着三种主要冠状病毒（CoV）的爆发。特别是，SARS-CoV-2 在全球迅速传播，迄今为止已影响近 2000 万人。最近的证据表明，SARS-CoV-2 病毒刺突蛋白内的突变被认为是造成这种快速传播的原因，目前正在进行约 200 项临床试验，以寻找治疗 SARS-CoV-2 感染的方法。纳米医学是应用纳米载体将药物特异性递送到目标部位的技术，已应用于不同的疾病，例如癌症，但也应用于病毒感染。纳米载体可以设计成封装疫苗并将其递送至抗原呈递细胞或本身用作抗原呈递载体。此外，药物可以封装到此类载体中，以直接靶向受感染的细胞。特别是，模仿病毒的纳米颗粒（NP），如自组装病毒蛋白、病毒样颗粒或脂质体，能够复制感染机制，不仅可以用作递送系统，还可以研究病毒感染和相关机制。本综述将详细描述 CoV 的组成和复制策略，概述目前在针对 SARS-CoV-2 的临床试验中评估的治疗方法，并将讨论基于 NP 的疫苗的潜力，以及使用纳米载体进行靶向治疗的潜力以及使用纳米颗粒进一步更详细地研究潜在的生物过程。