AUTHOR=Matusali Giulia , Trionfetti Flavia , Bordoni Veronica , Nardacci Roberta , Falasca Laura , Colombo Daniele , Terri Michela , Montaldo Claudia , Castilletti Concetta , Mariotti Davide , Del Nonno Franca , Capobianchi Maria Rosaria , Agrati Chiara , Tripodi Marco , Strippoli Raffaele TITLE=Pleural Mesothelial Cells Modulate the Inflammatory/Profibrotic Response During SARS-CoV-2 Infection JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences VOLUME=8 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-biosciences/articles/10.3389/fmolb.2021.752616 DOI=10.3389/fmolb.2021.752616 ISSN=2296-889X ABSTRACT=
Although lung fibrosis has a major impact in COVID-19 disease, its pathogenesis is incompletely understood. In particular, no direct evidence of pleura implication in COVID-19-related fibrotic damage has been reported so far. In this study, the expression of epithelial cytokeratins and Wilms tumor 1 (WT1), specific markers of mesothelial cells (MCs), was analyzed in COVID-19 and unrelated pleura autoptic samples. SARS-CoV-2 replication was analyzed by RT-PCR and confocal microscopy in MeT5A, a pleura MC line. SARS-CoV-2 receptors were analyzed by RT-PCR and western blot. Inflammatory cytokines from the supernatants of SARS-CoV-2-infected MeT5A cells were analysed by Luminex and ELLA assays. Immunohistochemistry of COVID-19 pleura patients highlighted disruption of pleura monolayer and fibrosis of the sub-mesothelial stroma, with the presence of MCs with fibroblastoid morphology in the sub-mesothelial stroma, but no evidence of direct infection