{"doi":"10.1101/2020.12.04.409144","title":"SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Impairs Endothelial Function via Downregulation of ACE2","abstract":"Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) includes the cardiovascular complications in addition to respiratory disease. SARS-CoV-2 infection impairs endothelial function and induces vascular inflammation, leading to endotheliitis. SARS-CoV-2 infection relies on the binding of Spike glycoprotein (S protein) to angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in the host cells. We show here that S protein alone can damage vascular endothelial cells (ECs) in vitro and in vivo, manifested by impaired mitochondrial function, decreased ACE2 expression and eNOS activity, and increased glycolysis. The underlying mechanism involves S protein downregulation of AMPK and upregulation of MDM2, causing ACE2 destabilization. Thus, the S protein-exerted vascular endothelial damage via ACE2 downregulation overrides the decreased virus infectivity.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":118424,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":84,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9624,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":550616,"name":"Jiao Zhang","orcid":"0000-0002-9283-3047","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":550617,"name":"Cara R. Schiavon","orcid":"0000-0002-9311-2145","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":323530,"name":"Ming He","orcid":"0000-0001-8867-1826","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":550618,"name":"Lili Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-9965-8990","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":266289,"name":"Hui Shen","orcid":"0000-0001-6231-5671","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227576,"name":"Yichi Zhang","orcid":"0000-0003-3932-3088","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":266295,"name":"Qian Yin","orcid":"0000-0002-6535-9861","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":550619,"name":"Yoshitake Cho","orcid":"0000-0002-7161-3248","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":106338,"name":"Leonardo R. Andrade","orcid":"0000-0002-0004-5677","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":551396,"name":"Gerry S. Shadel","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":318602,"name":"Mark Hepokoski","orcid":"0000-0002-9267-9262","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":550620,"name":"Ting Lei","orcid":"0000-0003-3241-7567","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":550621,"name":"Hongliang Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-3304-2683","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":232973,"name":"Jin Zhang","orcid":"0000-0001-7145-7823","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":363926,"name":"Jason X.‐J. Yuan","orcid":"0000-0002-2129-0321","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":270458,"name":"Atul Malhotra","orcid":"0000-0002-9509-1827","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":37858,"name":"Uri Manor","orcid":"0000-0002-9802-1955","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":550622,"name":"Shengpeng Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-9030-1821","position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":233132,"name":"Zuyi Yuan","orcid":"0000-0002-4141-0298","position":19,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":551397,"name":"John Y-J. Shyy","orcid":null,"position":20,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":266293,"name":"Yuyang Lei","orcid":"0000-0002-3456-5160","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":5,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:13:58.531532Z","pmid":"33300001","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}