While COVID-19 disease significantly impacts many pregnant women, the rates of transmission from mother to baby in pregnancy are very low. A new BUSM study has demonstrated that ACE-2, the receptor that allows SARS-CoV-2 to enter cells, is found in lower levels in the placentas of women with COVID-19 in pregnancy compared to women with normal (COVID negative) pregnancies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think that when a woman has COVID-19 in pregnancy, the placenta is shedding off ACE-2 as a way to block SARS-CoV-2 from being passed to the fetus,\u201d explained co-corresponding author Elizabeth S. Taglauer, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics.<\/p>\n
The study is a collaborative effort between placental\/perinatal researchers at BUSM, Boston Medical Center (BMC), Ke Yuan, PhD a lung vascular biologist at Boston Children\u2019s Hospital and Hongpeng Jia, PhD, an ACE-2 expert at Johns Hopkins University. It involved collecting placentas from two groups of women who delivered at BMC from July 2020-April 2021, an effort led by study co-author Elisha Wachman, MD, an associate professor of pediatrics at BUSM and a neonatologist at BMC. The first group was women who had normal pregnancies and no report of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The second group of women were SARS-CoV-2 positive and had active COVID-19 disease during pregnancy. They then observed the ACE-2 expression in their placentas under the microscope and compared placental ACE-2 expression using genetic and protein analysis techniques.<\/p>\n
According to the researchers, the placenta has many similarities with the lung, so this study also highlights the importance of studying the placenta to help understand a variety of lung diseases and highlights the important role of controlling ACE-2 as a way to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe placenta is one of the few \u201csuccess stories\u201d of the pandemic. If we understand how the placenta is naturally protecting babies from COVID-19, this may provide important information for therapies and strategies to help prevent other SARS-CoV-2 infections from continuing to spread,\u201d adds Taglauer, a neonatologist at BMC.<\/p>\n