Published in

MDPI, Genes, 6(11), p. 645, 2020

DOI: 10.3390/genes11060645

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Relative Abundance of SARS-CoV-2 Entry Genes in the Enterocytes of the Lower Gastrointestinal Tract

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

There is increasing evidence of gastrointestinal (GI) infection by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We surveyed the co-expression of SARS-CoV-2 entry genes ACE2 and TMPRSS2 throughout the GI tract to assess potential sites of infection. Publicly available and in-house single-cell RNA-sequencing datasets from the GI tract were queried. Enterocytes from the small intestine and colonocytes showed the highest proportions of cells co-expressing ACE2 and TMPRSS2. Therefore, the lower GI tract represents the most likely site of SARS-CoV-2 entry leading to GI infection.