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Stem Cell Reports . SARS-CoV-2 targets glial cells in human cortical organoids

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  • Stem Cell Reports . SARS-CoV-2 targets glial cells in human cortical organoids


    Stem Cell Reports


    . 2021 May 11;16(5):1156-1164.
    doi: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2021.01.016.
    SARS-CoV-2 targets glial cells in human cortical organoids


    Courtney L McMahon 1 , Hilary Staples 2 , Michal Gazi 2 , Ricardo Carrion 2 , Jenny Hsieh 3



    Affiliations

    Abstract

    Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients have manifested a variety of neurological complications, and there is still much to reveal regarding the neurotropism of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Human stem cell-derived brain organoids offer a valuable in vitro approach to study the cellular effects of SARS-CoV-2 on the brain. Here we used human embryonic stem cell-derived cortical organoids to investigate whether SARS-CoV-2 could infect brain tissue in vitro and found that cortical organoids could be infected at low viral titers and within 6 h. Importantly, we show that glial cells and cells of the choroid plexus were preferentially targeted in our model, but not neurons. Interestingly, we also found expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 in SARS-CoV-2 infected cells; however, viral replication and cell death involving DNA fragmentation does not occur. We believe that our model is a tractable platform to study the cellular effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection in brain tissue.

    Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; cortical organoid; glial cells; human embryonic stem cells; neurological symptoms; neurotropism.

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