Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2022 Dec 2;186(1):112–130.e20. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.11.030

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

© 2022 The Authors

Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.

PMC Copyright notice

SARS-CoV-2 infection of nasal epithelium occurs in two steps

(A and B) SARS-CoV-2 infects ciliated HNEs, not goblet cells. Mock-treated or infected HNEs (MOI 0.3) were stained (6, 24, 48, 96 hpi). Representative IF images of HNEs stained for SP, NP, and either cilia HNE marked by acetylated α-tubulin (ACTUB: A) or goblet cell marker (MUC5AC: B). Quantified percentages of NP- and SP-positive ciliated cells or goblet cells are shown (right panel).

(C) Initial SARS-CoV-2 infections are restricted to few ciliated HNEs. Mock-treated or infected HNEs (MOIs 3, 0.3, 0.03) were stained at 24 and 48 hpi. Representative IF staining of SP and phalloidin (actin) in virus-infected HNEs. Quantified percentages of SP-positive HNEs (24 and 48 hpi: right panel).

(D) Schematic of two-step infection model where SARS-CoV-2 first seeds (0–24 hpi) then spreads (24–48 hpi) during HNE infection. Error bars represent mean ± SD (3,000–4,000 cells quantified from HNEs from Donors 1–4). Each dot represents one donor. Scale bars represent 20 μm. See Figure S1, Table S1.