{"doi":"10.1172/jci140766","title":"Age-determined expression of priming protease TMPRSS2 and localization of SARS-CoV-2 in lung epithelium","abstract":"The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic has led to millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths. While older adults appear at high risk for severe disease, hospitalizations and deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 among children have been relatively rare. Integrating single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) of developing mouse lung with temporally resolved immunofluorescence in mouse and human lung tissue, we found that expression of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein primer TMPRSS2 was highest in ciliated cells and type I alveolar epithelial cells (AT1), and TMPRSS2 expression increased with aging in mice and humans. Analysis of autopsy tissue from fatal COVID-19 cases detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA most frequently in ciliated and secretory cells in airway epithelium and AT1 cells in peripheral lung. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was highly colocalized in cells expressing TMPRSS2. Together, these data demonstrate the cellular spectrum infected by SARS-CoV-2 in lung epithelium and suggest that developmental regulation of TMPRSS2 may underlie the relative protection of infants and children from severe respiratory illness.","journal":"Journal of Clinical Investigation","year":2020,"id":52440,"datarank":0.7357912167657645,"base_score":4.90527477843843,"endowment":4.90527477843843,"self_citation_contribution":0.7357912167657645,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.7357912167657645,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":134,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9529,"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":34714,"name":"Arun C. Habermann","orcid":"0000-0002-7564-6370","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264685,"name":"Erin J. Plosa","orcid":"0000-0001-7165-1722","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":12133,"name":"Chase J. Taylor","orcid":"0000-0002-7942-0483","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264686,"name":"Christopher S. Jetter","orcid":"0000-0002-3826-5843","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264687,"name":"Nicholas M. Negretti","orcid":"0000-0003-1022-8650","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":250521,"name":"Meghan Kapp","orcid":"0000-0002-0252-3919","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264688,"name":"John T. Benjamin","orcid":"0000-0002-0930-1753","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":265650,"name":"Peter M. Gulleman","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264689,"name":"David S. Nichols","orcid":"0000-0002-8066-3132","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108788,"name":"Lior Z. Braunstein","orcid":"0000-0002-5127-0217","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264690,"name":"Alice N. Hackett","orcid":"0000-0001-8833-7027","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264691,"name":"Michael Koval","orcid":"0000-0002-5422-5614","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":254895,"name":"Susan H. Guttentag","orcid":"0000-0003-4420-5879","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264692,"name":"Timothy S. Blackwell","orcid":"0000-0002-0337-7052","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":265651,"name":"Steven A. Webber","orcid":null,"position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":12172,"name":"Nicholas E. Banovich","orcid":"0000-0003-2604-3247","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":12177,"name":"Jonathan A. Kropski","orcid":"0000-0002-8923-1344","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":104335,"name":"Jennifer M. S. Sucre","orcid":"0000-0002-6613-1439","position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264684,"name":"Bryce Schuler","orcid":"0000-0001-9111-3702","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":31,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T20:42:26.843314Z","pmid":"33180746","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":[]}