In this short report, Pinja, Angelina, and a wonderful team of colleagues from our group and the Neuroscience Center lab of Prof. Jari Koistinaho, found that neurons derived from human pluripotent stem cells are susceptible to the full replication cycle of SARS-CoV-2. To infect neurons, the virus needs to enter the cells and reach lysosomes.
A drug that inhibits endosome maturation blocked infection in vitro. The next step is to validate all of our findings in vivo.
Can it be that a few neurons in our brain are infected for a long time and this causes Long COVID neurological symptoms?
Thank you all for the fantastic collaboration. It's a great start towards understanding what is going on with this virus and our brain!
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.14.508057v1?rss=1