Related Articles Single cell RNA sequencing of 13 human tissues identify cell types and receptors of human coronaviruses Biochem Biophys Res Commun 2020 Mar 18 Authors Qi F Qian S Zhang S Zhang Z Abstract The new coronavirus SARS CoV 2 outbreak from December 2019 in Wuhan Hubei China has been declared a global public health emergency Angiotensin I converting enzyme 2 ACE2 is the host receptor by SARS CoV 2 to infect human cells Although ACE2 is reported to be expressed in lung liver stomach ileum kidney and colon its expressing levels are rather low especially in the lung SARS CoV 2 may use co receptors auxiliary proteins as ACE2 partner to facilitate the virus entry To identify the potential candidates we explored the single cell gene expression atlas including 119 cell types of 13 human tissues and analyzed the single cell co expression spectrum of 51 reported RNA virus receptors and 400 other membrane proteins Consistent with other recent reports we confirmed that ACE2 was mainly expressed in lung AT2 liver cholangiocyte colon colonocytes esophagus keratinocytes ileum ECs rectum ECs stomach epithelial cells and kidney proximal tubules Intriguingly we found that the candidate co receptors manifesting the most similar expression patterns with ACE2 across 13 human tissues are all peptidases including ANPEP DPP4 and ENPEP Among them ANPEP and DPP4 are the known receptors for human CoVs suggesting ENPEP as another potential receptor for human CoVs We also conducted CellPhoneDB analysis to understand the cell crosstalk between CoV targets and their surrounding cells across different tissues We found that macrophages frequently communicate with the CoVs targets through chemokine and phagocytosis signaling highlighting the importance of tissue macrophages in immune defense and immune pathogenesis PMID 32199615 PubMed as supplied by publisher