Fig. 2. MT1-MMP⁺ACE2⁺ lung epithelial cells are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

a MT1-MMP⁺ cells were distributed across the indicated cell types in the human lung within UMAP. b Heat map analysis of MMP14 gene expression in various lung and airway cells. c The distribution of ACE2⁺ and ACE2⁺ MT1-MMP⁺ cells in the lung was assessed using human cellular profiles at the single cell level. Gene expression was visualized for each cell type using tSNE. d UMAP is depicted for ACE2⁺ (purple), ACE2⁺MT1-MMP⁺ cells (red) and viral RNA⁺ cells (yellow circles).