ABOVE: Like in human cells, ferrets’ transcriptional responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection lack an upregulation of certain antiviral genes.
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SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic, seems to provoke a muted antiviral reaction in human cells and in ferrets, according to a study posted to bioRxiv on March 24. The authors of the study, which is not yet peer-reviewed, propose that this distinctive transcriptional response may be responsible for the coronavirus’s high fatality rate.
“The value of really looking at how the host is responding to this virus is obviously very high and can inform [future work on] drugs,” says Carolina Lopez, who studies how viruses stimulate the immune system at University of Pennsylvania and who did not participate in the study.
Benjamin tenOever, a microbiologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and his group were already studying respiratory viruses when SARS-CoV-2 hit ...
