Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Feb 14, 2025; 31(6): 100864
Published online Feb 14, 2025. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v31.i6.100864
Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 and hepatic SARS-CoV-2 infection: Regulation, association, and therapeutic implications
Yu-Wei Luo, Ai-Long Huang, Kai-Fu Tang
Yu-Wei Luo, Ai-Long Huang, Kai-Fu Tang, Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology on Infectious Disease, Ministry of Education, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China
Co-corresponding authors: Ai-Long Huang and Kai-Fu Tang.
Author contributions: Tang KF and Luo YW designed the overall concept and outline of the manuscript; Tang KF and Huang AL contributed to discussion of the manuscript; Luo YW contributed the review of literature; Tang KF and Luo YW contributed to the writing and editing the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82172915, No. 81972648, and No. 81773011; Chongqing Medical University Program for Youth Innovation in Future Medicine, No. W0084; and Science and Technology Innovation Project of Chongqing Medical University; and Chongqing Postdoctoral Science Foundation, No. CSTB2023NSCQ-BHX0134.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest to disclose.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Kai-Fu Tang, PhD, Professor, Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology on Infectious Disease, Ministry of Education, Chongqing Medical University, No. 1 Yixueyuan Road, Yuzhong District, Chongqing 400016, China. tangkaifu@cqmu.edu.cn
Received: August 30, 2024
Revised: December 7, 2024
Accepted: December 20, 2024
Published online: February 14, 2025
Processing time: 133 Days and 0.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) serves as the entry receptor for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Jacobs et al discovered that elevated hepatic ACE2 expression during metabolic dysfunction may facilitate SARS-CoV-2 infection, which could potentially exacerbate the severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), suggesting ACE2 as a promising therapeutic target for COVID-19.