Relative Abundance of SARS-CoV-2 Entry Genes in the Enterocytes of the Lower Gastrointestinal Tract

Relative Abundance of SARS-CoV-2 Entry Genes in the Enterocytes of the Lower Gastrointestinal Tract

Anirban Maitra, Ken Chen, Scott Kopetz, John Paul Shen, Eduardo Vilar, Jaewon J. Lee

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.

2020

Gastrointestinal tract, ScRNA-seq, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19

DOI: 10.3390/genes11060645

Genes

MDPI AG

Genetics