Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comment
. 2021 Apr 26;19(4):e3001217.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001217. eCollection 2021 Apr.

The first few days of a SARS-CoV-2 infection viewed at single-cell resolution

Tom Gallagher  1 , Paul B McCray Jr  2
Affiliations
Comment

The first few days of a SARS-CoV-2 infection viewed at single-cell resolution

Tom Gallagher et al. PLoS Biol. .

Abstract

What transpires soon after inhaling Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the respiratory virus causing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)? Where does infection begin? What are the features of subsequent virus spread? How might host responses quickly contain infection? Two recently published manuscripts have evaluated infection in primary cultures of well-differentiated cells to address these questions and bring more light on the proviral and antiviral components operating during the initial days after SARS-CoV-2 exposure.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Single-cell resolution of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Primary cultures of well-differentiated bronchial epithelial cells, grown on permeable supports at ALIs, are infected with SARS-CoV-2, then separated for subsequent single-cell RNA sequencing. Using t-SNE statistical methods, cells with similar transcriptome profiles are group-clustered on two-dimensional plots. Individual cells containing SARS-CoV-2 RNAs and antiviral interferon transcripts are identified within clusters. Images were created with BioRender.com. ALI, air–liquid interface; SARS-CoV-2, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2; t-SNE, t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

    1. Deng W, Bao L, Liu J, Xiao C, Liu J, Xue J, et al.. Primary exposure to SARS-CoV-2 protects against reinfection in rhesus macaques. Science. 2020;369(6505):818–23. 10.1126/science.abc5343 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hou YJ, Okuda K, Edwards CE, Martinez DR, Asakura T, Dinnon KH III, et al.. SARS-CoV-2 Reverse Genetics Reveals a Variable Infection Gradient in the Respiratory Tract. Cell. 2020;182(2):429–46.e14. 10.1016/j.cell.2020.05.042 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ravindra NG, Alfajaro MM, Gasque V, Huston NC, Wan H, Szigeti-Buck K, et al.. Single-cell longitudinal analysis of SARS-CoV-2 infection in human airway epithelium identifies target cells, alterations in gene expression and cell state changes. PLoS Biol. 2021. 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001143 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fiege JK, Thiede JM, Nanda HA, Matchett WE, Moore PJ, Montanari NR, et al.. Single cell resolution of SARS-CoV-2 tropism, antiviral responses, and susceptibility to therapies in primary human airway epithelium. PLoS Pathog. 2021;17(1):e1009292. 10.1371/journal.ppat.1009292 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lee IT, Nakayama T, Wu CT, Goltsev Y, Jiang S, Gall PA, et al.. ACE2 localizes to the respiratory cilia and is not increased by ACE inhibitors or ARBs. Nat Commun. 2020;11(1):5453. 10.1038/s41467-020-19145-6 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Substances