Growth media affects susceptibility of air-lifted human nasal epithelial cell cultures to SARS-CoV2, but not Influenza A, virus infection.

Due to the impact of the ongoing COVID19 pandemic on the availability of patient-derived airway epithelial cultures, our lab turned to commercially available sources of airway epithelial cells to continue work. In this study, we compared two different ways of expanding these cells prior to differentiation and measure the resulting impact on final culture organization, cell type proportions, and response to respiratory virus infection. We find that the effects of growth media persist through the differentiation process, leading to culture differences that contribute to differential susceptibility to SCV2, but not IAV, infection, likely through expression of key entry cofactors. This work highlights the importance of independent comparisons of cell culture reagents, and the need for standardization between studies when using this data to inform public health decisions.