Brain corticogenesis and cholesterol homeostasis promotes SARS-CoV-2 infection and replication

Abstract

Abstract Although the neuroinvasiveness of SARS-CoV-2 has been extensively studied, the correlation between virus infectivity and brain maturation remained unclear. Here, using human-induced pluripotent stem cells-derived three-dimensional cerebral organoids (CBOs), we present the first quantitative data for long-term kinetics of SARS-CoV-2 propagation in brain for 20 days post-infection. We showed that mature brains are more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 than immature counterparts, evident from increased viral replication rate and higher TUNEL + cells proportion. Transcriptome profiling identified enhancement of corticogenesis and gliogenesis and indicated enrichments in translation machinery- and lipid metabolism-associated genes in mature brain, suggesting the major factors conferring the robust infectivity of SARS-CoV-2. The role of cholesterol in promoting viral replication was confirmed by the reduced number of infected cells in lipid lowering-drugs condition. Together, this study highlights that permissiveness of the brains to SARS-CoV-2 is greatly enhanced with their maturation and suggests cholesterol as a new target for suppressing viral replication.