Extended Data Fig. 5: Characterization of the brain features of COVID-19 patients without neurological symptoms.
From: Brain exposure to SARS-CoV-2 virions perturbs synaptic homeostasis
(a) RT-qPCR of the blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 4 COVID-19 patients using two anti SARS-CoV-2 probe sets (IP2 and IP4). GAPDH was also acquired. Color coding shows blood in red and CSF in blue. ND: not determined. (b) Imaging of Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E), GFAP and CD3 stainings of the frontal lobe of 6 COVID-19 patients using 10X magnification. (c) RT-qPCR from temporal lobe of 6 COVID-19 patient or 3 non-COVID-19 patients were performed in duplicates to evaluate the presence of astrocytes. The graph corresponds to GFAP mRNA expression normalized to GAPDH mRNA. Data are presented as mean values +/− SD. (d, e) Imaging of CD163 (D) and CD68 (E) staining of the frontal lobe of COVID-19 patients using 10X magnification. Scale bar = 100 µm. (f-g) RNA extraction and RT-qPCR from the temporal lobe of COVID-19 or individuals without COVID-19 (control) were performed and the data corresponds to the mRNA levels coding for GluA2 (F), or VTI1B (G) normalized by GAPDH. Each dot corresponds to an individual measurement obtained from at least two individual explants collected from 3 non-COVID-19 (control) and 6 COVID-19 patients in duplicates. Data are presented as mean values +/− SD. Two-tailed p value from unpaired t test was 0.026 (**) or 0.4584 (ns). (h) OPAB were mock-infected or infected with the original strain or the delta strain of SARS-CoV-2 at 105 pfu/well. The graph shows the distribution of Bassoon object volumes for each condition. Each dot corresponds to single Bassoon objects obtained from a n of 3 OPAB. Two-tailed p value from unpaired t test was < 0.0001 (****) or 0.1879 (ns).
