A Platform to Define Cellular Targets of SARS-COV-2 Infection Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cells and Organoids

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has already caused over a million COVID-19 cases and over fifty-thousand deaths globally. There is an urgent need to create novel models to study SARS-CoV-2 virus using human disease-relevant cells and tissues to understand key features of virus biology. We present a platform comprised of nine different cell and organoid derivatives from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) representing all three primary germ layers, including lung progenitors and alveolar type II (AT2) cells, pancreatic endocrine cells, liver organoids, endothelial cells, cardiomyocytes, macrophages, microglia, and both cortical and dopaminergic neurons. We systematically probed which cell types are permissive to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Human pancreatic beta cells and hepatocytes were strikingly permissive to SARS-CoV-2 infection, further validated using adult primary human islets and liver organoids. Both in vitro and in a humanized mouse model, human lung progenitors and AT2 cells express the ACE2 viral receptor and were highly permissive to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Transcriptomic analysis following SARS-CoV-2 infection of hPSC-derived pancreatic and lung organoids revealed upregulation of chemokines but not type I/III interferon signaling, similar to what was seen in primary human COVID-19 pulmonary infection. Therefore, hPSC-derived cells phenocopy human COVID-19 disease and provide a valuable resource to understand SARS-CoV-2 biology and search for novel therapeutics.