• eLife · Jul 2020

    Does the human placenta express the canonical cell entry mediators for SARS-CoV-2?

    • Roger Pique-Regi, Roberto Romero, Adi L Tarca, Francesca Luca, Yi Xu, Adnan Alazizi, Yaozhu Leng, Chaur-Dong Hsu, and Nardhy Gomez-Lopez.
    • Perinatology Research Branch, Division of Obstetrics and Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Division of Intramural Research, <italic>Eunice Kennedy Shriver</italic> National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Detroit, United States.
    • Elife. 2020 Jul 14; 9.

    AbstractThe pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has affected more than 10 million people, including pregnant women. To date, no consistent evidence for the vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2 exists. The novel coronavirus canonically utilizes the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor and the serine protease TMPRSS2 for cell entry. Herein, building upon our previous single-cell study (Pique-Regi et al., 2019), another study, and new single-cell/nuclei RNA-sequencing data, we investigated the expression of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 throughout pregnancy in the placenta as well as in third-trimester chorioamniotic membranes. We report that co-transcription of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 is negligible in the placenta, thus not a likely path of vertical transmission for SARS-CoV-2. By contrast, receptors for Zika virus and cytomegalovirus, which cause congenital infections, are highly expressed by placental cell types. These data show that the placenta minimally expresses the canonical cell-entry mediators for SARS-CoV-2.

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