Human Kidney is a Target for Novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection

Summary BACKGROUND The outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, previously provisionally named 2019 novel coronavirus or 2019-nCoV) since December 2019 in Wuhan, China, has become an emergency of major international concern. Apart from the respiratory system, it is unclear whether SARS-CoV-2 can also directly infect other tissues such as the kidney or induce acute renal failure. METHODS We conducted a retrospective analysis of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) along with other clinical parameters from 85 patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 admitted to a hospital in Wuhan from January 17, 2020 to March 3, 2020. Kidney tissues from six patients with postmortem examinations were analyzed by…