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. 2020 Jul 26;16(7):e9841. doi: 10.15252/msb.20209841

Figure 1. Proposed events during SARS‐CoV‐2 infection of the respiratory tract.

Figure 1

(A) At baseline, ACE2 expression is present in the conjunctival epithelia of the eye and at low levels in the ciliated epithelial cells in the upper airways, allowing SARS‐CoV‐2 infection at these initial sites. (B) The antiviral response induced upon SARS‐CoV‐2 infection induces a marked upregulation of ACE2 expression, allowing the SARS‐CoV‐2 to spread across the respiratory mucosa and into the parenchyma of the lung, where it can infect type‐2 alveolar epithelial cells.