key: cord-0721885-p15bdmo2
authors: Winkler, Tom; Ben-David, Uri
title: Elevated expression of ACE2 in tumor-adjacent normal tissues of cancer patients
date: 2020-04-25
journal: bioRxiv
DOI: 10.1101/2020.04.25.061200
sha: 45adcc70de274c6ec0bb467e5bd2ffdaf5fb34b3
doc_id: 721885
cord_uid: p15bdmo2

The rapidly developing COVID-19 pandemic has raised a concern that cancer patients may have increased susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection. This discussion has mostly focused on therapy-induced immune suppression. Here, we examined the expression patterns of ACE2, the receptor through which SARX-CoV2 enters human cells, and found that ACE2 mRNA levels are elevated in tumor-adjacent normal tissues of cancer patients, including in normal-adjacent lung tissues of lung cancer patients. These observations raise the possibility that the elevated COVID-19 risk of cancer patients may not be limited to those undergoing immune-suppressing treatment.

The recent outbreak of a novel betacoronavirus known as severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has raised the concern that cancer patients might be particularly susceptible to infection by this virus 1 

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