Single cell transcriptome revealed SARS-CoV-2 entry genes enriched in colon tissues and associated with coronavirus infection and cytokine production

Dear Editor,The novel COVID-19 coronavirus(SARS-CoV-2)endangers thousands of lives.Recently,nearly 10%COVID-19 patients with symptoms of the digestive tract were subsequently diagnosed in newly discovered SARS-CoV-2 infected cases,1 which indicates that SARSCoV-2 may infect people via digestive systems.The expression profile of angiotensin-converting enzyme homolog 2(ACE2)has been analyzed in gastrointestinal tract using external datasets.Unfortunately,most data of these datasets are not from Asian adults and the expression of other SARS-CoV-2 entry genes have not been detected in human gastrointestinal tract.Therefore,to provide more implications of viral transmission in clinical diagnosis and treatment,it is urgent to explore the expression of SARS-CoV-2 entry genes in the gastrointestinal tract of Asian people.Here,we used single-cell RNA sequencing profiled~27,800 cells of intestinal tissues from six patients with basic intestinal disease of Renji hospital.