Coronavirus persistence in human respiratory tract and cell culture: An overview
ABSTRACT Emerging human coronaviruses, including the recently identified SARS-CoV-2, are relevant respiratory pathogens due to their potential to cause epidemics with high case fatality rates, although endemic coronaviruses are also important for immunocompromised patients. Long-term coronavirus infections had been described mainly in experimental models, but it is currently evident that SARS-CoV-2 genomic-RNA can persist for many weeks in the respiratory tract of some individuals clinically recovered from coronavirus infectious disease-19 (COVID-19), despite a lack of isolation of infectious virus. It is still not clear whether persistence of such viral RNA may be pathogenic for the host and related to long-term sequelae. In this review, we summarize evidence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA persistence in respiratory samples besides results obtained from cell culture and histopathology describing long-term coronavirus infection. We also comment on potential mechanisms of coronavirus persistence and relevance for pathogenesis.
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Digital revista |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases
2021
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| Online Access: | http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1413-86702021000500301 |
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