Figure 6.

Permissiveness of human islet cells to endemic coronavirus and LCMV infection

(A) Left: contour plots are gated on live α, β, and “other” cell subsets from 96-h mock- or HCoV-OC43-infected islet cell cultures. Right: summary of HCoV-OC43 NP expression in live and dead islet cell subsets (n = 4 donors).

(B) GCG and INS expression levels across mock-infected, NP⁻, and NP⁺ α or β cells.

(C) MC analyses were conducted with 96-h mock- or HCoV-OC43-infected islet cells. HCoV-OC43 NP staining and tSNE visualization of live and dead mock-infected (left) and SARS-CoV-2-infected (right) non-hematopoietic cells; overlaid red dots (corresponding to the red demarcated regions in the respective left contour plots) indicate background HCoV-OC43 NP staining for mock cultures and HCoV-OC43 NP detection for infected cultures.

(D and E) 96-h mock or HCoV-NL63 infection of islets; data are displayed as in (A) and (B) (n = 4 donors).

(F and G) 72-h mock or LCMV infection of islets; contour plots gated on live cells show the viral burden in α, β, and “other” cells; dot plots indicate relative survival/death of β cells, and histograms compare GCG and INS levels in the respective uninfected, NP⁻, and NP⁺ fractions of α or β cells.

All summary diagrams represent mean ± SD and/or scatter for the indicated numbers of donors; statistics were calculated by paired t test or repeated-measures ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparisons where applicable (∗, p < 0.05; ∗∗, p < 0.01).