Coronavirus Targets Cells in Lungs, Nose and Intestines, Find MIT Researchers

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology {(MIT) Cambridge, MA, USA} have identified specific types of cells that appear to be targets of the coronavirus that is causing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using existing data on the RNA found in different types of cells, the researchers were able to search for cells that express the two proteins that help the SARS-CoV-19 virus enter human cells. They found subsets of cells in the lung, the nasal passages, and the intestine that express RNA for both of these proteins much more than other cells. The researchers hope that their findings will help guide scientists who are working on developing new drug treatments or testing existing drugs that could be repurposed for treating COVID-19.

Much of the data used for the study came from labs that belong to the Human Cell Atlas project, whose goal is to catalog the distinctive patterns of gene activity for every cell type in the human body. The datasets that the MIT team used for this study included hundreds of cell types from the lungs, nasal passages, and intestine. The researchers chose those organs for the COVID-19 study because previous evidence had indicated that the virus can infect each of them. They then compared their results to cell types from unaffected organs.

In the nasal passages, the researchers found that goblet secretory cells, which produce mucus, express RNAs for both of the proteins that SARS-CoV-2 uses to infect cells. In the lungs, they found the RNAs for these proteins mainly in cells called type II pneumocytes. These cells line the alveoli (air sacs) of the lungs and are responsible for keeping them open. In the intestine, they found that cells called absorptive enterocytes, which are responsible for the absorption of some nutrients, express the RNAs for these two proteins more than any other intestinal cell type.

“This may not be the full story, but it definitely paints a much more precise picture than where the field stood before,” said Jose Ordovas-Montanes, a former MIT postdoc who now runs his own lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, and is one of the senior authors of the study. “Now we can say with some level of confidence that these receptors are expressed on these specific cells in these tissues.”

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)