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Updated: Oct 26, 2025

Dissecting Innate Immune Signaling in Viral Evasion of Cytokine Production
Published on: March 2, 2014
Immune evasion of SARS-CoV-2 from interferon antiviral system
Yuan-Qin Min1,2, Mengzhuo Huang1,3, Xiulian Sun1,2
1State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071/430207, China.
Abstract:
The on-going pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led to unprecedented medical and socioeconomic crises. Although the viral pathogenesis remains elusive, deficiency of effective antiviral interferon (IFN) responses upon SARS-CoV-2 infection has been recognized as a hallmark of COVID-19 contributing to the disease pathology and progress. Recently, multiple proteins encoded by SARS-CoV-2 have been shown to act as potential IFN antagonists with diverse possible mechanisms. Here, we summarize and discuss the strategies of SARS-CoV-2 for evasion of innate immunity (particularly the antiviral IFN responses), understanding of which will facilitate not only the elucidation of SARS-CoV-2 infection and pathogenesis but also the development of antiviral intervention therapies.
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