SARS-CoV-2 replicates in the placenta after maternal infection during pregnancy.

Pregnant women are at increased risk for severe SARS-CoV-2 infection and adverse neonatal outcome, primarily preterm birth and stillbirth. Our study aimed to investigate to which extent SARS-CoV-2 affects placental tissue and if viral replication within the placenta is evident, thus if there is a correlation between placental damage and adverse pregnancy outcome such as stillbirth. We prospectively collected placentas from 61 SARS-CoV-2 infected pregnant women and 10 controls. Histopathological, immunohistochemical, and The measured scores of SARS-CoV-2 glycoprotein, nucleocapsid, and antisense strand indicating replication correlated with both the severity of maternal symptoms and presence of stillbirth. Specifically, 15/61 placentas exhibited replication, while the three cases with stillbirth had high or maximal replication scores. ACE2-H-score was significantly higher in COVID-19 patients, while the expression of various immune cells did not differ statistically. In multivariate analysis, presence of maternal comorbidities correlated with presence of severe COVID-19 infection. We report evidence of active

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Copyright © 2024 Radan, Renz, Raio, Villiger, Haesler, Trippel and Surbek.

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The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.