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Establishing Human Lung Organoids and Proximal Differentiation to Generate Mature Airway Organoids
Published on: March 23, 2022
Coronavirus disease 2019 and the gut-lung axis
Dan Zhou1, Qiu Wang2, Hanmin Liu1
1Department of Paediatrics, West China Second University Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China; Key Laboratory of Birth Defects and Related Diseases of Women and Children (Sichuan University), Ministry of Education, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
Abstract:
Gastrointestinal and respiratory tract diseases often occur together. There are many overlapping pathologies, leading to the concept of the 'gut-lung axis' in which stimulation on one side triggers a response on the other side. This axis appears to be implicated in infections involving severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), which has triggered the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, in which respiratory symptoms of fever, cough and dyspnoea often occur together with gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhoea. Besides the gut-lung axis, it should be noted that the gut participates in numerous axes which may affect lung function, and consequently the severity of COVID-19, through several pathways. This article focuses on the latest evidence and the mechanisms that drive the operation of the gut-lung axis, and discusses the interaction between the gut-lung axis and its possible involvement in COVID-19 from the perspective of microbiota, microbiota metabolites, microbial dysbiosis, common mucosal immunity and angiotensin-converting enzyme II, raising hypotheses and providing methods to guide future research on this new disease and its treatments.
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