Journal
CELL STEM CELL
Volume 28, Issue 7, Pages 1205-+Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2021.04.028
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Eye Bank for Sight Restoration
- Research to Prevent Blindness
- National Eye Institute (NEI) [1R21EY03021501]
- Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Carlsberg Foundation
- Lundbeck Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused unprecedented global disruption and significant loss of life. The eye may serve as a portal for viral entry, with potential implications for direct infection by SARS-CoV-2.
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused unparalleled disruption of global behavior and significant loss of life. To minimize SARS-CoV-2 spread, understanding the mechanisms of infection from all possible routes of entry is essential. While aerosol transmission is thought to be the primary route of spread, viral particles have been detected in ocular fluid, suggesting that the eye may be a vulnerable point of viral entry. To this end, we confirmed SARS-CoV-2 entry factor and antigen expression in post-mortem COVID-19 patient ocular surface tissue and observed productive viral replication in cadaver samples and eye organoid cultures, most notably in limbal regions. Transcriptional analysis of ex vivo infected ocular surface cells and hESC-derived eye cultures revealed robust induction of NF-KB in infected cells as well as diminished type I/III interferon signaling. Together these data suggest that the eye can be directly infected by SARS-CoV-2 and implicate limbus as a portal for viral entry.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available