Fig. 1.

Distribution of ACE2 gene mRNA in adult human brain regions. The illustration shows the distribution of the SARS-CoV-2 host-cell receptor using the probe ACE2-A_23_P252981 in a human sample (patient HO351.2001). The dots display the intensity of ACE2 mRNA expression in more than 100 localizations including the telencephalon, cerebral cortex, limbic lobe and hippocampal formation in a sagittal view of the cortex (A, solid representation; C, transparent rendering of the cortical mass to enable visualization of the internal structures (e.g. hippocampus, cerebellum and brain stem) and rostro-caudal coronal view enabling visualization of surface and internal (midbrain) structures (B,D). The same visualization protocol is followed: (B, solid representation; D, transparent rendering of the cortical mass to enable visualization of the internal structures). The colour code reflects the intensity as high (red), neutral (yellow) or low (blue). Obtained from the Allen Human Protein Atlas (http://www.proteinatlas.org) and the Human Brain Atlas (http://human.brain-map.org) through Brain Explorer (https://human.brain-map.org/static/brainexplorer) (Hawrylycz et al., 2012). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)