Human Kidney is a Target for Novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection

Bo Diao; Chenhui Wang; Rongshuai Wang; Zeqing Feng; Yingjun Tan; Huiming Wang; Changsong Wang; Liang Liu; Ying Liu; Yueping Liu; Gang Wang; Zilin Yuan; Liang Ren; Yuzhang Wu; Yongwen Chen

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.04.20031120 doi: medRxiv preprint / 1 7 To confirm that SARS-CoV-2 might directly infect kidney tubules thus lead to tubular damage, the viral NP antigen was assessed by immunohistochemistry. Results showed that SARS-CoV-2 NP antigens could be seen in kidney tissues from all of these six samples, with NP expression restricted to kidney tubules, and NP-positive inclusion body was also observed. The NP-positive expression was observed in cytoplasm, but nuclear signals were not observed (Figure 2A) . Some NP-positive tubular epithelial cells were dropped from normal tubules (Figure 2B) , while NP-antigen was also absent in the glomerulus (Figure 2C) . The expression of NP protein in lung tissues from COVID-19