Significant expression of FURIN and ACE2 on oral epithelial cells may facilitate the efficiency of 2019-nCov entry

Bing-peng Lin; Mei Zhong; Hong-bin Gao; Kai-bin Wu; Ming-xiao Liu; Chang Liu; Xin-hong Wang; Jian-ming Chen; Learn-han Lee; Cui-ling Qi; Lin-hu Ge; Li-jing Wang

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-Seq) technique, which provides an avenue to understand gene regulation networks, metastasis and the complexity of intratumoral cell-to-cell heterogeneity at the single-cell level, has diverse applications on bioinformatics, stem cell differentiation, organ development, whole-tissue subtyping and tumor biology [17, 18, 19] . It captures cellular differences underlying tumor biology at a higher resolution than regular bulk RNA-seq and has revolutionized studies of cancer mechanisms and personalized medicine [ 20 ] . For better understanding the potential infection risk in oral cavity, we explored whether the ACE2 and FURIN were expressed and their expressing cells composition and proportion in different oral tissues based on the public scRNA-seq profiles from GEO public databases. Then IHC analysis was used to further confirm the results in the protein level. These results will provide a theoretical basis for clarifying the possible invading path and damage of SARS-CoV-2 in oral tissues.