Human pluripotent stem cell derived hepatic platforms to study SARS-COV-2 infection

ABSTRACT

Background: COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona-virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Respiratory failure is the most common mortality outcome in COVID-19 patients, yet serious and even fatal manifestations are seen across multiple organ systems Emerging clinical data from our own hospital revealed a high prevalence of initial presentations with GI manifestations Almost one third of patients presenting to our hospital reported at least one gastrointestinal manifestation including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or abdominal pain 62% of patients presented with biochemical evidence of liver injury Moreover, the presence of liver injury on presentation was associated with a significantly higher risk of ICU admission and death As this is a new and novel clinical entity, robust in vitro models that phenocopy SARS-CoV-2 infection and human COVID-19 disease are limited Current in vitro (e g Vero cells) and in vivo models (mouse models engineered with ACE2) are so distinct from human infection that they may not capture key components of viral infection or virus-host interactions Therefore, the development of robust human models of COVID-19 infection will be essential for the study of SARS-Cov-2 viral infection and to identify robust SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics Methods: Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), including human embryonic stem cells hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), can be used to derive functional human cells/tissues/organoids for modeling human disease and drug discovery, including for infectious diseases Here we leveraged several stem cell platforms (e g endodermal lineages including hepatocyte and cholangiocyte) along with primary human hepatocytes and cholangiocyte organoid systems to study SARS-CoV-2 infection SARS-CoV-2 pseudoparticles were used to study SARS-CoV-2 viral entry SARS-CoV-2 (USA-WA1/2020) was used to validate viral infection and to study cellular response Autopsy liver samples from COVID-19 patients were obtained and compared to SARS-CoV-2 infected liver models Results: Adult hepatocyte and cholangiocyte organoids along with PSC derived hepatocytes and cholangiocytes are Permissive to SARS-CoV-2 virus infection and show similar transcriptome changes and chemokine responses for SARSCoV- 2 infection as seen in autopsy samples from COVID-19 Patients Conclusion: We report here the development of robust models of SARS-CoV-2 infection in primary and PSC derived hepatocyte and cholangiocytes which phenocopy COVID-19 hepatic disease These disease-relevant human cell/organoid-based platforms can be directly applied for drug screening and the evaluation of prospective antiviral therapeutics as well be used to delineate molecular mechanisms underlying COVID-19 disease.