SARS-CoV-2 infection of human cortical cells is influenced by the interaction between aneuploidy and biological sex: insights from a Down syndrome in vitro model
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Individuals with Down Syndrome (DS) represent one of the most susceptible populations for developing severe COVID-19, and a unique human genetic condition for investigating molecular mechanisms underlying susceptibility of neurologically vulnerable individuals to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Human Chromosome-21 (HSA21) triplication in DS causes global transcriptional deregulation, affecting multiple genes that may directly (e.g., TMPRSS2) or indirectly influence the SARS-CoV-2 entry into central nervous system (CNS) cells. The anti-viral immune response may also be altered in cells with trisomy-21 (T21) due to triplication of genes encoding for several interferon receptor subunits and interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs). Here, we demonstrate that human cells derived from fetal cortical specimens and maintained in primary cultures are susceptible to infection with a molecular clone of vesicular stomatitis virus engineered to express the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 (VSV-eGFP-SARS-CoV-2) and to authentic SARS-CoV-2. The level of SARS-CoV-2 infectivity in cultures originated from different cortical specimens varied, seemingly depending on ploidy and chromosomal sex of the cells. We confirmed the presence of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 in cultures and found that XY T21 group had the highest TMPRSS2 mRNA levels, which was associated with increased infectivity in XY-compared to XX T21 cultures. The XX T21 cultures exhibited elevated expression of several ISGs (MX1, STAT1, and STAT2) which was associated with lower infectivity. The comparisons of postmortem aged brain specimens revealed reduced ACE2, TMPRSS2, but elevated STAT2 protein levels in individuals with DS and Alzheimer's disease (DS-AD) compared to control and Alzheimer's disease (AD) group. Collectively, these results suggest multifactorial regulation of SARS-CoV-2 infectivity in cortical cells that involves ploidy, chromosomal sex, and the expression of genes implicated in regulation of virus entry and anti-viral response as contributing factors.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".