Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
PLoS One. 2020 Apr 16;15(4):e0230295. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0230295. eCollection 2020.
The new type of pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) has been declared as a global public health concern by WHO. As of April 3, 2020, more than 1,000,000 human infections have been diagnosed around the world, which exhibited apparent person-to-person transmission characteristics of this virus. The capacity of vertical transmission in SARS-CoV-2 remains controversial recently. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is now confirmed as the receptor of SARS-CoV-2 and plays essential roles in human infection and transmission. In present study, we collected the online available single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data to evaluate the cell specific expression of ACE2 in maternal-fetal interface as well as in multiple fetal organs. Our results revealed that ACE2 was highly expressed in maternal-fetal interface cells including stromal cells and perivascular cells of decidua, and cytotrophoblast and syncytiotrophoblast in placenta. Meanwhile, ACE2 was also expressed in specific cell types of human fetal heart, liver and lung, but not in kidney. And in a study containing series fetal and post-natal mouse lung, we observed ACE2 was dynamically changed over the time, and ACE2 was extremely high in neonatal mice at post-natal day 1~3. In summary, this study revealed that the SARS-CoV-2 receptor was widely spread in specific cell types of maternal-fetal interface and fetal organs. And thus, both the vertical transmission and the placenta dysfunction/abortion caused by SARS-CoV-2 need to be further carefully investigated in clinical practice.
由严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2（SARS-CoV-2）引起的新型肺炎已被世界卫生组织宣布为全球公共卫生关注。截至 2020 年 4 月 3 日，全球已诊断出超过 100 万例人类感染病例，该病毒表现出明显的人际传播特征。最近，SARS-CoV-2 的垂直传播能力仍存在争议。血管紧张素转换酶 2（ACE2）现已被确认为 SARS-CoV-2 的受体，在人类感染和传播中发挥着重要作用。在本研究中，我们收集了在线可用的单细胞 RNA 测序（scRNA-seq）数据，以评估 ACE2 在母胎界面以及多个胎儿器官中的细胞特异性表达。我们的结果表明，ACE2 在母胎界面细胞（包括基质细胞和蜕膜中的血管周细胞）以及胎盘中的滋养细胞和合体滋养细胞中高度表达。同时，ACE2 也在人胎儿心脏、肝脏和肺部的特定细胞类型中表达，但不在肾脏中表达。在一项包含系列胎儿和产后小鼠肺的研究中，我们观察到 ACE2 的表达随时间动态变化，在产后第 1 至 3 天的新生小鼠中表达极高。总之，本研究表明，SARS-CoV-2 的受体广泛分布于母胎界面和胎儿器官的特定细胞类型中。因此，需要在临床实践中进一步仔细研究 SARS-CoV-2 的垂直传播和胎盘功能障碍/流产。
