Aminopeptidase N Expression, Not Interferon Responses, Determines the Intestinal Segmental Tropism of Porcine Deltacoronavirus
Lingdan Yin, Jianfei Chen, Liang Li, Shanshan Guo, Mei Xue, Jialin Zhang, Xiang Liu, Li Feng, Pinghuang Liu
Abstract
The zoonotic potential of the PDCoV, a coronavirus efficiently infecting cells from a broad range species, including porcine, chicken, and human, emphasizes the urgent need to further study the cell and tissue tropism of PDCoV in its natural host. Herein, we generated crypt stem cell-derived enteroids from porcine different intestinal regions, which well recapitulated the events in vivo of PDCoV infection that PDCoV targeted multiple types of intestinal epithelia and preferably infected the jejunum and ileum over the duodenum and colon. Mechanistically, we demonstrated that the expression of APN receptor rather than the IFN responses determined the susceptibility of different regions of the intestines to PDCoV infection, though PDCoV infection markedly elicited the IFN responses. Our findings provide important insights into how the distinct gene expression profiles of the intestinal segments determine the cell and tissue tropism of PDCoV.