Lung cell images show how intense a coronavirus infection can be
New closeup views of lung cells show just how prolifically the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can replicate once it infiltrates the respiratory tract. In the lab, pediatric pulmonologist Camille Ehre and colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill infected cells that line the airways in the lungs with SARS-CoV-2, waited 96 hours and then snapped scanning electron micrograph images of the virus-laden cells. “Once a cell is infected, it is completely taken over by the virus, producing an astonishing number of viruses” Ehre says. In a lab dish of about 1 million human cells, she says the viral load can skyrocket from about one thousand infectious viruses to 10 million in just two days. The new images were published September 3 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Sign up for e-mail updates on the latest coronavirus news and research Cells that line the respiratory tract and their hairlike protrusions called...