Single-cell RNA expression profiling of ACE2, the putative receptor of Wuhan 2019-nCoV, in the nasal tissue

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Abstract

A novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, and then spreads to the other Provinces of China. WHO decides to determine a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) of 2019-nCoV. 2019-nCov was reported to share the same receptor, Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), with SARS-Cov. Here based on the public single-cell RNA-Seq datasets, we analyzed the ACE2 RNA expression profile in the tissues at different locations of the respiratory tract. The result indicates that the ACE2 expression appears in nasal epithelial cells. We found that the size of this population of ACE2-expressing nasal epithelial cells is comparable with the size of the population of ACE2-expression type II alveolar cells (AT2) in the Asian sample reported by Yu Zhao et al. We further detected 2019-nCoV by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from the nasal-swab and throat-swab of seven suspected cases. We found that 2019-nCoV tends to have a higher concentration in the nasal-swab comparing to the throat-swab, which could attribute to the ACE2-expressing nasal epithelial cells. We hope this study could be informative for virus-prevention strategy development, especially the treatment of nasal mucus.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.02.11.20022228: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: The study was approved by Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University (IIT20200012A).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.