Genes (Basel) . Relative Abundance of SARS-CoV-2 Entry Genes in the Enterocytes of the Lower Gastrointestinal Tract

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Genes (Basel)


. 2020 Jun 11;11(6):E645.
doi: 10.3390/genes11060645.
Relative Abundance of SARS-CoV-2 Entry Genes in the Enterocytes of the Lower Gastrointestinal Tract


Jaewon J Lee[SUP] 1 2 [/SUP], Scott Kopetz[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Eduardo Vilar[SUP] 3 4 [/SUP], John Paul Shen[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Ken Chen[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Anirban Maitra[SUP] 1 [/SUP]



Affiliations

• PMID: 32545271
• DOI: 10.3390/genes11060645

Abstract

There is increasing evidence of gastrointestinal (GI) infection by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We surveyed the co-expression of SARS-CoV-2 entry genes ACE2 and TMPRSS2 throughout the GI tract to assess potential sites of infection. Publicly available and in-house single-cell RNA-sequencing datasets from the GI tract were queried. Enterocytes from the small intestine and colonocytes showed the highest proportions of cells co-expressing ACE2 and TMPRSS2. Therefore, the lower GI tract represents the most likely site of SARS-CoV-2 entry leading to GI infection.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; gastrointestinal tract; scRNA-seq.