Cholesterol, inflammation, and phospholipids: COVID-19 share traits with cardiovascular disease

Abstract

COVID-19, the severe acute respiratory syndrome produced by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has resulted to date in more than 39 million infected cases and 1 million deaths worldwide since the first reported cases in December 2019 at the Chinese city of Wuhan (for updated information readers can consult https://covid19.who.int/). The disease can drastically evolve from fever, cough, breath shortness and alterations in smell and taste to acute respiratory distress, septic shock, multi-organ failure and blood clots [1] (Fig. 1). It is known that SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV can remodel the lipidome of the infected cells. Thus, this research letter aims to present and discuss the current information about observed changes in lipid metabolites in COVID-19 patients.