Section of Neuropathology, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Nat Aging. 2024 Nov;4(11):1598-1618. doi: 10.1038/s43587-024-00730-z. Epub 2024 Nov 14.
Understanding the pathophysiology of neurological symptoms observed after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) infection is essential to optimizing outcomes and therapeutics. To date, small sample sizes and narrow molecular profiling have limited the generalizability of findings. In this study, we profiled multiple cortical and subcortical regions in postmortem brains of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and controls with matched pulmonary pathology (total n = 42) using spatial transcriptomics, bulk gene expression and proteomics. We observed a multi-regional antiviral response without direct active SARS-CoV2 infection. We identified dysregulation of mitochondrial and synaptic pathways in deep-layer excitatory neurons and upregulation of neuroinflammation in glia, consistent across both mRNA and protein. Remarkably, these alterations overlapped substantially with changes in age-related neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Our work, combining multiple experimental and analytical methods, demonstrates the brain-wide impact of severe acute/subacute COVID-19, involving both cortical and subcortical regions, shedding light on potential therapeutic targets within pathways typically associated with pathological aging and neurodegeneration.
了解严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2(SARS-CoV2)感染后观察到的神经症状的病理生理学对于优化治疗效果至关重要。迄今为止,样本量小和分子谱狭窄限制了研究结果的普遍性。在这项研究中,我们使用空间转录组学、批量基因表达和蛋白质组学对 42 例具有匹配肺部病理学的 COVID-19 患者和对照者的死后大脑的多个皮质和皮质下区域进行了分析。我们观察到一种多区域抗病毒反应,没有直接的 SARS-CoV2 感染。我们发现,深层兴奋性神经元中线粒体和突触途径的失调以及神经胶质中神经炎症的上调在 mRNA 和蛋白质水平上都是一致的。值得注意的是,这些改变与包括帕金森病和阿尔茨海默病在内的与年龄相关的神经退行性疾病的改变有很大的重叠。我们的工作结合了多种实验和分析方法,证明了严重的急性/亚急性 COVID-19 对大脑的广泛影响,涉及皮质和皮质下区域,为通常与病理性衰老和神经退行性变相关的途径中的潜在治疗靶点提供了线索。