Pediatric nasal epithelial cells are less permissive to SARS-CoV-2 replication compared to adult cells

By the 25th of January 2021, SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 100 million people around the world. Large data analyses have shown that the elderly are particularly susceptible to severe forms of COVID-19. However, COVID-19 in children appears to be relatively mild and there is currently concern that children could be an important potential source of SARS-CoV-2. To assess the nasal susceptibility to COVID-19 of children compared to adult, we used a novel in vitro model consist of adult and peadiatric airway epithelial cells to investigate viral titers of the SARS-CoV-2 replicates and the immune response to SARS-CoV-2. A lower titer of SARS-CoV-2 was recorded in peadiatric cells at 24, 48 and 72 hours post-infection. We also performed RNA sequencing analysis to investigate the role of nasal epithelial cells in the different infection rates of SARS-CoV-2 in adults and children. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.08.434300