Abstract
The recent pandemic, COVID-19, is caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, with elusive origin. SARS-CoV-2 infects mammalian cells via ACE2, a transmembrane protein. Therefore, the conservation and expression patterns of ACE2 may provide valuable insights into tracing the carriers of SARS-CoV-2. In this work, we analyzed the conservation of ACE2 and its expression pattern among various mammalian species that are close to human beings. We show that mammalian ACE2 gene is deeply conserved at both DNA and peptide levels, suggesting that a broad range of mammals can potentially host SARS-CoV-2. We further report that ACE2 expression in certain human tissues are consistent with clinical symptoms of COVID-19 patients. Furthermore, we have built the first atlas of ACE2 expression in various common mammals, which shows that ACE2 expresses in mammalian tissues in a species-specific manner. Most notably, we observe exceptionally high expression of ACE2 in external body parts of cats and dogs, suggesting that these household pet animals could be vulnerable to viral infections and/or may serve as intermediate hosts, thus yielding novel insights into the transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
Highlights
Since December 2019, outbreak of COVID-19, a severe respiratory disease, has turned into a worldwide pandemic
The connections between ACE2 expression and viral infection are further supported by clinical cases from the United States, which confirmed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in both the upper respiratory tract and stool sample of COVID-19 patients [7]
We show that the ACE2 expression profile in human tissues agrees with clinical observations of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients
Summary
Since December 2019, outbreak of COVID-19, a severe respiratory disease, has turned into a worldwide pandemic. COVID-19 is becoming a global challenge to public health and continues to gather close attention. The culprit of this pandemic is a new virus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1], which belongs to the same beta coronavirus family as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, the other two viruses that caused outbreaks in the past two decades [1,2]. The connections between ACE2 expression and viral infection are further supported by clinical cases from the United States, which confirmed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in both the upper respiratory tract and stool sample of COVID-19 patients [7]
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