COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, can result in acute respiratory distress syndrome and multiple organ failure, but little is known about its pathophysiology.
Read this paper that describes the development of a large cross-body COVID-19 autopsy biobank of 420 autopsy specimens spanning 11 organs. These specimens are used to generate a single-cell atlas of lung, kidney, liver, and heart associated with COVID-19 and a lung spatial atlas in a subset of 14–18 donors per organ. These atlases provided crucial insights into the pathogenesis of severe COVID-19.
The researchers described how infected cells from multiple organs exhibit various molecular and genomic changes in this study. Using single-cell RNA sequencing data from tissue samples taken from 11 organ systems, the scientists built a comprehensive “cell atlas” — available for free online — of hundreds of thousands of individual cells showing how COVID-19 can lead to organ failure and death.