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Review
. 2021 Mar 9;16(3):373-384.
doi: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2021.02.007. Epub 2021 Feb 12.

Neurotropic Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Modeled by the Human Brain Organoids

Anand Ramani  1 , Abida-Islam Pranty  1 , Jay Gopalakrishnan  2
Affiliations
Review

Neurotropic Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Modeled by the Human Brain Organoids

Anand Ramani et al. Stem Cell Reports. .

Abstract

COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, is a socioeconomic burden, which exhibits respiratory illness along with unexpected neurological complications. Concerns have been raised about whether the observed neurological symptoms are due to direct effects on CNS or associated with the virus's systemic effect. Recent SARS-CoV-2 infection studies using human brain organoids revealed that SARS-CoV-2 targets human neurons. Human brain organoids are stem cell-derived reductionist experimental systems that have highlighted the neurotropic effects of SARS-CoV-2. Here, we summarize the neurotoxic effects of SARS-CoV-2 using brain organoids and comprehensively discuss how brain organoids could further improve our understanding when they are fine-tuned.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; human brain organoids; tauopathy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic summarizes the effect of sARS-CoV-2 in brain and choroid plexus organoids Gray boxes list the various cellular effects caused by SARS-CoV-2. The bars adjacent to organoid images show infectivity represented from yellow (low) to red (high).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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