Table 1.

Summary of known virus-pericyte interactions.

Family (Subfamily)	Genus	Species	Pericyte interaction	References
Coronaviridae (Orthocoronavirinae)	Betacoronavirus	Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)	Reduced pericyte coverage in alveolar capillaries in vivo Dysregulated angiopoietin signalling in vivo Reduced endothelial cell support, increased migration and secretion of proinflammatory and proapoptotic factors in cardiac pericytes treated with spike protein in vitro	[58] [81] [57]
Flaviviridae	Flavivirus	Dengue virus (DENV)	Soluble NS1-mediated reduction in pericyte-endothelial cell interaction and increased coculture permeability in vitro Dysregulated angiopoietin signalling and reduced serum PDGF-BB and TGF-β correlating with severe dengue in vivo	[64] [68–70, 73]
		Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV)	Infection of brain pericytes in vitro (rat) and in vivo (mouse) Proinflammatory cytokine secretion in infected pericytes in vitro (rat) and in vivo (mouse)	[49] [49]
		Zika virus (ZIKV)	In vitro infection of brain and retinal pericytes In vivo infection of brain pericytes (mouse) Proinflammatory and angiogenic cytokine secretion in infected pericytes in vitro Reduced levels of serum PDGF-BB in vivo	[46, 47] [46] [47] [74]
Herpesviridae (Betaherpesvirinae)	Cytomegalovirus	Human betaherpesvirus 5 (human cytomegalovirus, HCMV)	In vitro infection of brain, placental, retinal and inner blood-retinal barrier pericytes In vivo infection of brain and placental pericytes In vitro and in vivo infection of renal mesangial cells1 and perivascular mesenchymal stromal cells2 in brain, liver, lung and bone marrow Placental pericyte loss in vivo Proinflammatory and angiogenic cytokine secretion in infected pericytes in vitro and in vivo	[23–25] [23, 25] [26, 27] [25] [23–25]
Retroviridae (Orthoretrovirinae)	Lentivirus	Human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1)	In vitro infection of brain and lung pericytes Brain pericyte loss and blood-brain barrier destabilisation in vivo Infection-associated increase in pericyte-endothelial cell coculture permeability in vitro Pericyte-dependent enhancement of blood-brain barrier endothelium penetration by cell-free HIV-1 in vitro Proinflammatory cytokine secretion, cytoskeleton remodelling and modulation of extracellular matrix and adhesion proteins in infected pericytes in vitro Soluble Tat-mediated increase in migration, PDGF-BB expression and PDGF-Rβ activation in brain pericyte in vitro Dysregulated angiopoietin signalling and increased PDGF-BB expression in vivo	[35–38, 43] [31–35] [37] [39] [31, 32] [34] [34, 75–77]
		Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)	Brain pericyte loss and blood-brain barrier destabilisation in vivo (rhesus macaque) Infection of lung pericytes in vivo (rhesus and cynomolgus macaques)	[33] [43]

Model organism species is indicated only where human data is unavailable. NS1, nonstructural protein 1; PDGF-BB, platelet-derived growth factor BB; PDGF-Rβ, PDGF receptor beta; Tat, transactivator of transcription; TGF-β, transforming growth factor beta.

*Renal mesangial cells are a tissue-specific pericyte lineage.

†Perivascular mesenchymal stromal cells are a cell population closely related to pericytes.