sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistence throughout the human body and brain
Daniel Chertow ( chertowd@cc.nih.gov ) National Institutes of Health https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1675-1728
Sydney Stein National Institutes of Health https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0259-4485
...more...
COVID-19 is known to cause multi-organ dysfunction1-3
68 in acute infection, with
69 prolonged symptoms experienced by some patients, termed Post-Acute Sequelae of SARSCoV-2 (PASC)4-5
70 . However, the burden of infection outside the respiratory tract and time to viral clearance is not well characterized, particularly in the brain3,6-14
71 . We performed
72 complete autopsies on 44 patients with COVID-19 to map and quantify SARS-CoV-2
73 distribution, replication, and cell-type specificity across the human body, including brain,
74 from acute infection through over seven months following symptom onset. We show that
75 SARS-CoV-2 is widely distributed, even among patients who died with asymptomatic to
76 mild COVID-19, and that virus replication is present in multiple pulmonary and
77 extrapulmonary tissues early in infection. Further, we detected persistent SARS-CoV-2
78 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days
79 following symptom onset. Despite extensive distribution of SARS-CoV-2 in the body, we
80 observed a paucity of inflammation or direct viral cytopathology outside of the lungs. Our
81 data prove that SARS-CoV-2 causes systemic infection and can persist in the body for
82 months.
more...
https://assets.researchsquare.com/fi...f?c=1640020576
Daniel Chertow ( chertowd@cc.nih.gov ) National Institutes of Health https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1675-1728
Sydney Stein National Institutes of Health https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0259-4485
...more...
COVID-19 is known to cause multi-organ dysfunction1-3
68 in acute infection, with
69 prolonged symptoms experienced by some patients, termed Post-Acute Sequelae of SARSCoV-2 (PASC)4-5
70 . However, the burden of infection outside the respiratory tract and time to viral clearance is not well characterized, particularly in the brain3,6-14
71 . We performed
72 complete autopsies on 44 patients with COVID-19 to map and quantify SARS-CoV-2
73 distribution, replication, and cell-type specificity across the human body, including brain,
74 from acute infection through over seven months following symptom onset. We show that
75 SARS-CoV-2 is widely distributed, even among patients who died with asymptomatic to
76 mild COVID-19, and that virus replication is present in multiple pulmonary and
77 extrapulmonary tissues early in infection. Further, we detected persistent SARS-CoV-2
78 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days
79 following symptom onset. Despite extensive distribution of SARS-CoV-2 in the body, we
80 observed a paucity of inflammation or direct viral cytopathology outside of the lungs. Our
81 data prove that SARS-CoV-2 causes systemic infection and can persist in the body for
82 months.
more...
https://assets.researchsquare.com/fi...f?c=1640020576
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