Fig. 1: Robust replication of recently emerged human and bat coronaviruses in LoM and the predilection of SARS-CoV-2 for infection of human epithelial cells.
From: SARS-CoV-2 infection is effectively treated and prevented by EIDD-2801
a, LoM construction and image of a human lung implant. b, Viral titres in the human lung tissue of LoM injected with SARS-CoV (n = 14) (red), MERS-CoV (n = 16) (orange), SARS-CoV-2 (n = 7) (blue), WIV1-CoV (n = 6) (green) or SHC014 (n = 6) (purple), as determined by plaque assay. PFU, plaque-forming units. c, SARS-CoV-2 titres in the human lung tissue of LoM at days 2 (n = 6), 6 (n = 6) and 14 (n = 6) after exposure were compared with a two-sided Kruskal–Wallis with Dunn’s multiple comparisons test. d, SARS-CoV-2 RNA in human lung tissue of LoM at two days after exposure. SARS-CoV-2 RNA-positive, red; nuclei, blue. Scale bars, 750 μm (left), 250 μm (top right, bottom right). n = 3. e, Virus nucleoprotein in human lung tissue of LoM two days after exposure. Nucleoprotein-positive cells, red; nuclei, blue. Scale bars, 200 μm (left), 50 μm (top right, bottom right). n = 6. f, Costaining of human lung tissue of LoM, two days after exposure to SARS-CoV-2, for virus nucleoprotein (NP) (red) and cytokeratin 19 (epithelial cells, green) (n = 6), CD34 (endothelial cells, green) (n = 4) or vimentin (mesenchymal cells, green) (n = 4). Nuclei, blue. Scale bars, 50 μm. g, Costaining of human lung tissue of LoM, two days after exposure to SARS-CoV-2, for virus nucleoprotein (red) and acetylated α-tubulin IV (ciliated cells, green) (n = 6), CC10 (club cells, green) (n = 6), HT1-56 (alveolar type-1 pneumocytes, green) (n = 6) or pro-SP-C (alveolar type-2 pneumocytes, green) (n = 3). Nuclei, blue. Scale bars, 50 μm. In b, c, horizontal and vertical lines represent the median and interquartile range, respectively. n, number of biologically independent lung tissues analysed.
