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Human Pre-Implantation Embryos Are Permissive to SARS-CoV-2 Entry

Mauricio Montano, Andrea R. Victor, Darren K. Griffin, Tommy Duong, Nathalie Bolduc, Andrew Farmer, Vidur Garg, Anna-Katerina Hadjantonakis, Frank L. Barnes, Christo G. Zouves, Warner C. Greene, View ORCID ProfileManuel Viotti
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.21.427501
Mauricio Montano
1Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, California, USA
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Andrea R. Victor
2Zouves Fertility Center, Foster City, California, USA
3School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
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Darren K. Griffin
3School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
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Tommy Duong
4Takara Bio USA, Inc., Mountain View, California, USA
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Nathalie Bolduc
4Takara Bio USA, Inc., Mountain View, California, USA
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Andrew Farmer
4Takara Bio USA, Inc., Mountain View, California, USA
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Vidur Garg
5Developmental Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA
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Anna-Katerina Hadjantonakis
5Developmental Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA
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Frank L. Barnes
2Zouves Fertility Center, Foster City, California, USA
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Christo G. Zouves
2Zouves Fertility Center, Foster City, California, USA
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Warner C. Greene
1Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, California, USA
6Departments of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America
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Manuel Viotti
2Zouves Fertility Center, Foster City, California, USA
7Zouves Foundation for Reproductive Medicine, Foster City, California, USA
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  • ORCID record for Manuel Viotti
  • For correspondence: viottimanuel@gmail.com
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Abstract

Vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, from parents to early embryos during conception could be catastrophic, but is contingent on the susceptibility of cells of the embryo to infection. Because presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been reported in the human reproductive system, we assessed whether pre-implantation embryos are permissive to SARS-CoV-2 entry. RNA-seq and immunostaining studies revealed presence of two key entry factors in the trophectoderm of blastocyst-stage embryos, the ACE2 receptor and the TMPRSS2 protease. Exposure of blastocysts to fluorescent reporter virions pseudotyped with the SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S) glycoprotein revealed S-ACE2 dependent entry and fusion. These results indicate that human pre-implantation embryos can be infected by SARS-CoV-2, a finding pertinent to natural human conceptions and assisted reproductive technologies during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted January 21, 2021.
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Human Pre-Implantation Embryos Are Permissive to SARS-CoV-2 Entry
Mauricio Montano, Andrea R. Victor, Darren K. Griffin, Tommy Duong, Nathalie Bolduc, Andrew Farmer, Vidur Garg, Anna-Katerina Hadjantonakis, Frank L. Barnes, Christo G. Zouves, Warner C. Greene, Manuel Viotti
bioRxiv 2021.01.21.427501; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.21.427501
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Human Pre-Implantation Embryos Are Permissive to SARS-CoV-2 Entry
Mauricio Montano, Andrea R. Victor, Darren K. Griffin, Tommy Duong, Nathalie Bolduc, Andrew Farmer, Vidur Garg, Anna-Katerina Hadjantonakis, Frank L. Barnes, Christo G. Zouves, Warner C. Greene, Manuel Viotti
bioRxiv 2021.01.21.427501; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.21.427501

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