Replication of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in Human Respiratory Epithelium
Aleksandra Milewska, Anna Kula, Jakub Wadas, Agnieszka Suder, Artur Szczepański, Agnieszka Dąbrowska, Katarzyna Owczarek, Alessandro Marcello, Marek Ochman, Tomasz Stącel, Zenon Rajfur, Marek Sanak, Paweł P. Łabaj, Wojciech Branicki, Krzysztof Pyrć
Abstract
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged by the end of 2019 and rapidly spread in 2020. At present, it is of utmost importance to understand the biology of the virus, rapidly assess the treatment potential of existing drugs, and develop new active compounds. While some animal models for such studies are under development, most of the research is carried out in Vero E6 cells. Here, we propose fully differentiated human airway epithelium cultures as a model for studies on SARS-CoV-2.