Responsiveness of the Immune System to Nanomedicine during Coronavirus Infections: Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Abstract Objective Nanomedicine can play an important role in the various stages of prevention, diagnosis, treatment, vaccination, and research related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). While nanomedicine is a powerful interdisciplinary means that offers various approaches in patient treatment, a number of factors should be critically studied to find approaches and mechanisms in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of this disease. This bibliometric analysis was designed to explore studies on the current knowledge of the structure, its mechanism of cell binding, and the therapeutic effect of nanomedicine on COVID-19. Materials and Methods The study data was searched from Web of Science Core Collection(WoSCC) between 2017 and 2021. Biblioshiny and VOSviewer were used to analyze and visualize patterns in scientific literature derived from WoS. Results The three clusters of keywords resulted relating to aim. Cluster 1 looking into epidemiological and public health studies on COVID-19. Cluster 2 included terms associated with virus transition, such as receptor binding, membrane glycoprotein, membrane fusion, and viral envelope proteins. Cluster 3 involved high-frequency keywords associated with nanomedicine, such as metal nanoparticles, drug delivery system doxorubicin, immunology, immune response, inflammation, and unclassified drug. Keywords such as “nanotechnology” and “gold nanoparticles” were at the center of COVID-19 related clusters, indicating the importance of these areas during the outbreak. Conclusions Understanding the advanced virology of coronaviruses and interfering with their spread through nanomedicine could significantly impact global health and economic stability. Continuous research is needed to accelerate the transfer of nanomedicine results into practice of treatment without risk of side effects.