SARS-CoV-2 infects carotid arteries: implications for vascular disease and organ injury in COVID-19

  1. Susanne Pfefferle
  2. Thomas Günther
  3. Victor G. Puelles
  4. Fabian Heinrich
  5. Dominik Nörz
  6. Manja Czech-Sioli
  7. Alexander Carsten
  8. Susanne Krasemann
  9. Milagros N. Wong
  10. Lisa Oestereich
  11. Tim Magnus
  12. Lena Allweiss
  13. Carolin Edler
  14. Ann Sophie Schröder
  15. Maura Dandri
  16. Tobias B. Huber
  17. Markus Glatzel
  18. Klaus Püschel
  19. Adam Grundhoff
  20. Marc Lütgehetmann
  21. Martin Aepfelbacher
  22. Nicole Fischer
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Abstract

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.

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