Highly ACE2 Expression in Pancreas May Cause Pancreas Damage After SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Furong Liu; Xin Long; Wenbin Zou; Minghao Fang; Wenjuan Wu; Wei Li; Bixiang Zhang; Wanguang Zhang; Xiaoping Chen; Zhanguo Zhang

To investigate the distribution of ACE2 in the pancreas, we analyzed two scRNA-seq datasets. We identified different types of pancreatic cells, such as alpha cell, beta cell, acinar cell, ductal cell and several other types of cells (Fig. 1B, D) . In GSE85241, ACE2 was expressed in 55 cells (2.59%) among the total 2126 cells, most of which (81.82%) were expressed in exocrine gland (duct cells and acinar cells), and a few (16.36%) were expressed in pancreatic islets (alpha, beta, delta and PP cells) (Fig. 1C , (Fig. 1E , Table 1 ). Individual differences between donors from different sources may lead to differences in the analysis results of the two scRNA-seq datasets. These data still indicate that ACE2 is expressed in both the exocrine glands and islets, which may be the main potential part targeted by SARS-CoV-2 in the pancreas, resulting in . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.