SARS-CoV-2 infects retinal cells, especially retinal ganglion cells, but also light-sensitive cells.
A collaborative team of researchers led by Thomas Rauen and Hans Schöler of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine and virologist Stephan Ludwig of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster has now decided to utilize organoids – an organ-like model system – of the retina from human reprogrammed stem cells to study Sars-CoV-2 infection of the retina.
According to the study, Sars-CoV-2 actually infects retinal cells, especially retinal ganglion cells, but also light-sensitive cells. Furthermore, the researchers show that coronaviruses can also replicate in these cell types. This finding is new and underlines the need to monitor retinal pathologies as a possible consequence of ‘Long Covid’.
