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SARS-CoV-2 is the virus responsible for a respiratory disease called COVID-19 that devastated global public health. Since 2020, there has been an intense effort by the scientific community to develop safe and effective prophylactic and therapeutic agents against this disease. In this context, peptides have emerged as an alternative for inhibiting the causative agent. However, designing peptides that bind efficiently is still an open challenge. Here, we show an algorithm for peptide engineering. Our strategy consists of starting with a peptide whose structure is similar to the interaction region of the human ACE2 protein with the SPIKE protein, which is important for SARS-COV-2 infection. Our methodology is based on a genetic algorithm performing systematic steps of random mutation, protein-peptide docking (using the PyRosetta library) and selecting the best-optimized peptides based on the contacts made at the peptide-protein interface. We performed three case studies to evaluate the tool parameters and compared our results with proposals presented in the literature. Additionally, we performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations (three systems, 200 ns each) to probe whether our suggested peptides could interact with the spike protein. Our results suggest that our methodology could be a good strategy for designing peptides.

This study described integrative community therapy (ICT) in the online modality as a health promotion resource in the context of COVID-19 in Latin America, characterizing the ICT circles, the ICT training centers, and the community therapists involved in this practice. It is a descriptive, observational, and cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach. Data were collected from November 2020 to July 2021 through an online questionnaire created on the Google Forms platform. The study's first stage involved the participation of ICT training centers, while the second involved community therapists. Forty-three centers participated in the first stage; 86.1% offered online ICT in the period evaluated, and 74.4% trained professionals to implement this modality. In the second stage, 66 community therapists responded to the questionnaire. Of these, 49 (74.2%) resided in Brazil, 84.8% were female, and 72.7% performed the work voluntarily, with an average of 6.1 hours per week dedicated to online circles. Community-based circles were the most cited, followed by those linked to the public sector, with an average of 20.7 participants/circle in the period. The most frequent themes were stress and negative emotions, problems with work/unemployment, and family conflicts. Strengthening self-care, participation in ICT circles, and personal empowerment stood out among the coping strategies. In conclusion, online ICT proved to be an innovative resource for health promotion during the pandemic through the articulation and engagement of community therapists and different institutions, expanding solidary social networks, and showing itself as a sustainable practice in the Latin American scenario., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Introduction: In the present study, the impact of BromAc®, a specific combination of bromelain and acetylcysteine, on the SARS-CoV-2-specific inflammatory response was evaluated., Methods: An in vitro stimulation system was standardized using blood samples from 9 healthy donors, luminex assays and flow cytometry were performed., Results and Discussion: BromAc® demonstrated robust anti-inflammatory activity in human peripheral blood cells upon SARS-CoV-2 viral stimuli, reducing the cytokine storm, composed of chemokines, growth factors, and proinflammatory and regulatory cytokines produced after short-term in vitro culture with the inactivated virus (iSARS-CoV-2). A combined reduction in vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) induced by SARS-CoV-2, in addition to steady-state levels of platelet recruitment-associated growth factor-PDGFbb, was observed, indicating that BromAc® may be important to reduce thromboembolism in COVID-19. The immunophenotypic analysis of the impact of BromAc® on leukocytes upon viral stimuli showed that BromAc® was able to downmodulate the populations of CD16+ neutrophils and CD14+ monocytes observed after stimulation with iSARS-CoV-2. Conversely, BromAc® treatment increased steady-state HLA-DR expression in CD14+ monocytes and preserved this activation marker in this subset upon iSARS-CoV-2 stimuli, indicating improved monocyte activation upon BromAc® treatment. Additionally, BromAc® downmodulated the iSARS-CoV-2-induced production of TNF-a by the CD19+ B-cells. System biology approaches, utilizing comprehensive correlation matrices and networks, showed distinct patterns of connectivity in groups treated with BromAc®, suggesting loss of connections promoted by the compound and by iSARS-CoV-2 stimuli. Negative correlations amongst proinflammatory axis and other soluble and cellular factors were observed in the iSARS-CoV-2 group treated with BromAc® as compared to the untreated group, demonstrating that BromAc® disengages proinflammatory responses and their interactions with other soluble factors and the axis orchestrated by SARS-CoV-2., Conclusion: These results give new insights into the mechanisms for the robust anti-inflammatory effect of BromAc® in the steady state and SARS-CoV-2-specific immune leukocyte responses, indicating its potential as a therapeutic strategy for COVID-19., Competing Interests: SV and DM are shareholders of Mucpharm Pty Ltd. and provided scientific input on the protocol and design of the study. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The authors declare that this study received funding from Mucpharm Pty Ltd. The funder had the following involvement in the study: provided only scientific input on the protocol and design of the study., (Copyright © 2023 Ferreira, Clarindo, Ribeiro, Gomes-de-Pontes, de Carvalho, Martins-Filho, da Fonseca, Teixeira, Sabino, Eapen, Morris, Valle and Coelho-dos-Reis.)

Since its first identification in Brazil, the variant of concern (VOC) Gamma has been associated with increased infection and transmission rates, hospitalizations, and deaths. Minas Gerais (MG), the second-largest populated Brazilian state with more than 20 million inhabitants, observed a peak of cases and deaths in March-April 2021. We conducted a surveillance study in 1240 COVID-19-positive samples from 305 municipalities distributed across MG's 28 Regional Health Units (RHU) between 1 March to 27 April 2021. The most common variant was the VOC Gamma (71.2%), followed by the variant of interest (VOI) zeta (12.4%) and VOC alpha (9.6%). Although the predominance of Gamma was found in most of the RHUs, clusters of Zeta and Alpha variants were observed. One Alpha-clustered RHU has a history of high human mobility from countries with Alpha predominance. Other less frequent lineages, such as P.4, P.5, and P.7, were also identified. With our genomic characterization approach, we estimated the introduction of Gamma on 7 January 2021, at RHU Belo Horizonte. Differences in mortality between the Zeta, Gamma and Alpha variants were not observed. We reinforce the importance of vaccination programs to prevent severe cases and deaths during transmission peaks.