Figure 4.

Model for possible infection of SARS-CoV-2 in fetal brain. (A) During the first trimester, pregnant mothers infected with SARS-CoV-2 can pass the virus through the placenta to the fetus via vertical transmission. It is unclear the health complications on the developing fetus this may cause or if the fetal brain is susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 neuroinvasion. (B) Schematic shows spike protein (S) of SARS-CoV-2 and the novel interacting proteins. (C) Time series expression data of novel S protein interactors to show the relative expression level analyzed from BrainSpan: Atlas of the Developing Human Brain database (https://brainspan.org/). Known interactors ACE2 and TMPRSS2 are not expressed in fetal brain tissue, but novel S protein interactors express mRNA transcripts at higher levels throughout fetal development. (D) Schematic of scRNA sequencing representing novel interactors identified in neurons and progenitors of fetal brain tissue analyzed from the fetal brain scRNA seq datasets maintained by Hemberg lab at Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (https://hemberg-lab.github.io/scRNA.seq.datasets/human/brain/).