SARS-CoV-2 can infect and replicate in human motor neurons differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells

SWAlexander

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Numerous patients experience neurological and neuromuscular symptoms during and after infection with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Apart from the central nervous system (CNS), the peripheral nervous system (PNS) is also affected. In this study, the Italian authors investigated whether SARS-CoV-2 can infect and replicate in human motor neurons (MNs) differentiated in vitro from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC-MNs). They also examined whether iPSC-MNs express the main receptors for SARS-CoV-2 entry and whether SARS-CoV-2 infection of iPSC-MNs changes the expression of 46 genes involved in cell survival, metabolism, inflammatory response, apoptotic and antiviral pathways.
SARS-CoV-2 is an enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus. Its genome encodes four structural proteins, namely the spike (S), envelope (E), nucleocapsid (N), and membrane (M) protein. It seems that SARS-CoV-2 uses various neuroinvasive strategies and entry pathways to invade the nervous system, such as infection of the nasal olfactory epithelium and axonal transport along the olfactory nerve, retrograde axonal transport, invasion by compromising the blood-brain barrier, retrograde virus spread from the lungs to the CNS via the vagus nerve, and the use of infected hematopoietic cells as “Trojan horses” (hematogenous route).
continue: https://discovermednews.com/sars-cov-2-can-infect-and-replicate-human-motor-neurons/
 
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