Covid-19 was firstly reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 which then began to spread worldwide. The causal agent of this disease is a novel beta coronavirus that is very similar to MERS and SARS. Similar clinical findings have been observed in COVID-19, SARS, and MERS infections. The disease is spread through contact with salivary and respiratory tract secretions of an infected person. Some patients with the covid-19 have clinical symptoms such as cough, muscle soreness, mild fever, and headache in the early stages of the disease. But with the exacerbation of the disease in the later stages, acute respiratory syndrome and multiple-organ failure occurred rapidly, which may lead to death eventually.
Clinical studies have been shown that cytokine storm play an important role in acute respiratory syndrome and multi organ failure, which is an important cause of disease progression. According to these studies, inhibition of cytokine storm can play an important role in the improvement of disease development. Clinical studies have reported that multi organ dysfunction has been observed in patients with Covid-19, and also severe inflammatory responses lead to intravascular coagulation, which is associated with symptoms such as decreased platelet count, increased D-dimer, and decreased fibrinogen.
Quercetin has anti-inflammatory activity through the inhibition of NF-κB, and also antiviral, anti-oxidative and anti-platelet aggregation activities. Some studies have reported that quercetin also has anti-cancer and immunomodulatory properties. In addition, luteolin has been shown to reduce inflammatory factors AP-1 transcription factor and phosphorylation of the MAPK and JNK, inhibit production of IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α, and decrease the lung tissue damage by inhibiting of NF-κB, ICAM-1, and oxidative stress. Luteolin increased antioxidant enzyme activities and reduced lipid peroxidation.
Therefore, in this review, we discussed about the possible effects of quercetin and luteolin in the controlling of inflammatory responses, organ dysfunction, coagulation disorder and chaos which occurs following the Covid-19