Photobiomodulation reduces the cytokine storm syndrome associated with Covid-19 in the zebrafish model

Abstract

Abstract This work presents the first study showing how photobiomodulation (PBM) significantly increases cellular and tissue repair and elucidating the role of PBM with low-level laser as a possible new therapy in pathologies in COVID-19-associated cytokine storm syndrome from a zebrafish model. Our results demonstrate new strategies for treating SARS-COV-2 using PBM to modulate the expression of the genes and metabolites involved in inflammatory processes. These metabolic alterations show that the r-Spike led to disturbance in the energetic and inflammatory system, corroborating with the severe clinical conditions of human patients. Furthermore, PBM decreased the gene expression levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as il1b, il6, tnfa, and nfkbiab, and of factors involved in oxidative stress (romo1) and energy metabolism (slc2a1a, coa1), in various tissues, promoting an anti-inflammatory response. In summary, our study suggests that PBM may have a positive role in treating cytokine storm syndrome associated with COVID-19. PBM can significantly regulate the inflammatory response promoting cellular and tissue repair of injured tissues. This work suggests that PBM may have a positive role in treating COVID-19-associated cytokine storm syndrome. Nevertheless, the need for more clinical trials remains, and there is a significant gap to overcome before clinical trials.