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Yale’s Akiko Iwasaki shows SARS-CoV-2 invades neurons

C$24.6M from Canadian government for translational studies on COVID-19 immunity, incidence; and Merck starts vaccine study

September 11, 2020 9:53 PM UTC

SARS-CoV-2 in neurons
Scientists led by Yale University’s Akiko Iwasaki showed in bioRxiv that SARS-CoV-2 can infect neurons and that brain infection is associated with stroke. In post-mortem brain tissue from patients who’d had severe COVID-19 complications, the researchers found SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in cortical neurons, around microvasculature and at the edges of ischemic infarct sites.

Though neurons express low levels of ACE2 mRNA, the virus’ host cell receptor, the team demonstrated that the cells express ACE2 protein, using both post-mortem brain samples and human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell-derived brain organoids. The virus was able to infect human iPS cell-derived forebrain cells, and mature neurons and neural stem cells in the organoids. ...