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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2020.06.13.149690

Single-cell screening of SARS-CoV-2 target cells in pets, livestock, poultry and wildlife

Abstract

A few animals have been suspected to be intermediate hosts of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, a large-scale single-cell screening of SARS-CoV-2 target cells on a wide variety of animals is missing. Here, we constructed the single-cell atlas for 11 representative species in pets, livestock, poultry, and wildlife. Notably, the proportion of SARS-CoV-2 target cells in cat was found considerably higher than other species we investigated and SARS-CoV-2 target cells were detected in multiple cell types of domestic pig, implying the necessity to carefully evaluate the risk of cats during the current COVID-19 pandemic and keep pigs under surveillance for the possibility of becoming intermediate hosts in future coronavirus outbreak. Furthermore, we screened the expression patterns of receptors for 144 viruses, resulting in a comprehensive atlas of virus target cells. Taken together, our work provides a novel and fundamental strategy to screen virus target cells and susceptible species, based on single-cell transcriptomes we generated for domesticated animals and wildlife, which could function as a valuable resource for controlling current pandemics and serve as an early warning system for coping with future infectious disease threats.

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BibTeXRIS

Chen, D., Sun, J., Zhu, J., Ding, X., Lan, T., Zhu, L., Xiang, R., Ding, P., Wang, H., Wang, X., Wu, W., Qiu, J., Wang, S., Li, H., An, F., Bao, H., Zhang, L., Han, L., Zhu, Y., Wang, F., Yuan, Y., Sun, C., Lu, H., Wu, J., Sun, X., Zhang, S., Sahu, S. K., Chen, H., Fang, D., Luo, L., Zeng, Y., Wu, Y., Cui, Z., He, Q., Jiang, S., Ma, X., Feng, W., Xu, Y., Li, F., Liu, Z., Chen, L., Chen, F., Jin, X., Qiu, W., Yang, H., Wang, J., Hua, Y., Liu, Y., Liu, H., Xu, X.. 2020-06-14. Single-cell screening of SARS-CoV-2 target cells in pets, livestock, poultry and wildlife. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.13.149690

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