PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Susanne Pfefferle
AU  - Thomas Günther
AU  - Victor G. Puelles
AU  - Fabian Heinrich
AU  - Dominik Nörz
AU  - Manja Czech-Sioli
AU  - Alexander Carsten
AU  - Susanne Krasemann
AU  - Milagros N. Wong
AU  - Lisa Oestereich
AU  - Tim Magnus
AU  - Lena Allweiss
AU  - Carolin Edler
AU  - Ann Sophie Schröder
AU  - Maura Dandri
AU  - Tobias B. Huber
AU  - Markus Glatzel
AU  - Klaus Püschel
AU  - Adam Grundhoff
AU  - Marc Lütgehetmann
AU  - Martin Aepfelbacher
AU  - Nicole Fischer
TI  - SARS-CoV-2 infects carotid arteries: implications for vascular disease and organ injury in COVID-19
AID  - 10.1101/2020.10.10.334458
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.10.10.334458
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/10/12/2020.10.10.334458.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/10/12/2020.10.10.334458.full
AB  - Stroke and central nervous system dysfunction are cardinal symptoms in critically ill corona virus disease 19 (COVID-19) patients. In an autopsy series of 32 COVID-19 patients, we investigated whether carotid arteries were infected with SARS-CoV-2 by employing genomic, virologic, histochemical and transcriptomic analyses. We show that SARS-CoV-2 productively infects and modulates vascular responses in carotid arteries. This finding has far reaching implications for the understanding and clinical treatment of COVID-19.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.