SARS-CoV-2 infection activates AhR signaling

Purpose:To determine the effect of SARS-CoV-2 infection on AhR signaling, we performed single-cell RNAseq (scRNA-Seq) from macaque lung tissue infected with SARS-CoV-2. Methods: Rhesus monkeys (3-5 kg, 3-5years old) were used for this study. One monkey is infected by intragastric administration with 1x 10^7 PFU of SARS-CoV-2 in 1mL of PBS, and another monkey was intranasally injected with 1x10^6 of SARS-CoV-2 in 200 µl of PBS. One monkey was intranasally and intragastrically treated with PBS as a control. We analyzed the tissues collected on the 4 dpi following Intranasal and intragastrical inoculation. Single-cell sequencing of were sequenced by an Illumina Novaseq6000 sequencer, the sequencing depth of each cell was at least 100,000 reads, and the paired-end 150 bp (PE150) reading strategy was adopted. Results and Conclusions: The scRNA-Seq results showed that the increased expression of upstream gene IDO1 and downstream transcriptional targets CYP1A1 and CYP1B1 of AhR in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. We analyzed the single cell transcriptomes of the left lung and right lung of monkey collected on the 4 dpi intranasal and intragastrical inoculation.