Figure 3 | Scientific Reports

Figure 3

From: SARS-CoV-2 receptor is co-expressed with elements of the kinin–kallikrein, renin–angiotensin and coagulation systems in alveolar cells

Figure 3

Lung expression of genes involved in SARS-Cov-2 cell entry is selective to alveolar cells. (a) Schematic representing SARS-Cov-2 cell entry mechanism. TMPRSS2 cleaves SARS-Cov-2 spike protein, allowing it to bind to ACE2, its functional receptor. It is known that other genes such as PIKFYVE, TPCN2 and CTSL also play a role in SARS-Cov-2 endocytosis and cellular contamination (b-f). Visualization of gene expression in dbMAP embeddings of the lung atlas. b. TMPRSS2 expression is restricted to alveolar cells. c. ACE2 expression is selective to alveolar cells and fibroblasts. (d–f) PIKFYVE, TPCN2 and CTSL are expressed consistently throughout the majority of lung cell types. CTSL expression in macrophages (g). Dot plot visualization of expression of genes involved in SARS-Cov-2 cell entry in human lung cell types. ACE2 expression is selective to alveolar clusters, similarly to TMPRSS2, but with the particularity of being lowly expressed in a large portion of endothelial cells. PIKFYVE, CTSL and TPCN2 are expressed by all clusters, but CTSL expression is much higher in macrophages, while TPCN2 expression is higher in NK and T CD4/CD8 clusters.

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