Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a kind of viral pneumonia with an unusual outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV-2). The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 has been marked as the third introduction of a highly pathogenic coronavirus into the human population after the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARSCoV) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in the twenty-first century. In this minireview, we provide a brief introduction of the general features of SARS-CoV-2 and discuss current knowledge of molecular immune pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 on the base of the present understanding of SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV infections, which may be helpful in offering novel insights and potential therapeutic targets for combating the SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Introduction

Novel coronavirus-induced pneumonia, which was named as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by the WHO on the February 11, 2020, has rapidly increased in epidemic scale since it first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 [1]. On the same day, the international virus classification commission announced that the novel coronavirus was named as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). COVID-19 is not the first severe respiratory disease outbreak caused by the coronavirus. Just in the past two decades, coronaviruses have caused three epidemic diseases, namely, COVID-19, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) [2]. At present, the cases of COVID-19 have been found in many countries around the world [3]. According to the latest data, up to the March 1, 2020, the number of confirmed cases in China reached 79,968, of which 2,873 were dead, and 41,681 were cured. In addition to China, the number of confirmed cases in other countries also reached 7,041, of which 105 were dead, and 459 were cured. On the 31st of January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that COVID-19 was listed as the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), meaning that it may pose risks to multiple countries and requires a coordinated international response. The review tries to explain the molecular immune pathogenesis and diagnosis of COVID-19 and provide a reference for the prevention and drug development of SARS-CoV-2 infection, based on the recent research progress of SARS-CoV-2 and the knowledge from researches on SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV.