Figure 1.

SARS-CoV-2 spike protein suppressed the mRNA expression of ACE2 and type I interferon in lung bronchoalveolar lavage from naïve macaques. Primary lung bronchoalveolar lavages from naïve rhesus macaques were cultured with 1 (T1) or 2 (T2) µg/ml of spike protein S1 for 20 hrs (n=20 and n=6 or 8, respectively). After the supernatants were collected, the cells were lysed with trizol and RNAs were isolated. After reverse transcription, macaque-specific primer/probe sets were used to measure the mRNA expression levels of ACE2, CCL5, and interferon α4 (A–C). Data are shown as mean±SEM. Each dot presents one animal. The blue color indicates the samples from T1 that have corresponding cultures from matched animals in T2. Wilcoxon signed rank tests were used to calculate the p values. (D) ACE2 positively correlated with interferon α4 in lung bronchoalveolar lavage. Spearman R and p values are shown.