Indirect effects of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 on the kidney in coronavirus disease patients

Aymeric Couturier; Sophie Ferlicot; Kévin Chevalier; Matthieu Guillet; Marie Essig; Stéphane Jauréguiberry; Rocco Collarino; Mathilde Dargelos; Alice Michaut; Guillaume Geri; Anne-Marie Roque-Afonso; Mohamad Zaidan; Ziad A Massy

doi:10.1093/ckj/sfaa088

Indirect effects of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 on the kidney in coronavirus disease patients

Clin Kidney J. 2020 May 22;13(3):347-353. doi: 10.1093/ckj/sfaa088. eCollection 2020 Jun.

Authors

Aymeric Couturier^{1

2}, Sophie Ferlicot³, Kévin Chevalier⁴, Matthieu Guillet^{5

6}, Marie Essig^{1

2

6}, Stéphane Jauréguiberry^{2

4}, Rocco Collarino⁴, Mathilde Dargelos¹, Alice Michaut³, Guillaume Geri^{2

6

7}, Anne-Marie Roque-Afonso^{6

8}, Mohamad Zaidan^{5

6}, Ziad A Massy^{1

2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Service de Néphrologie et Dialyse, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP), Hôpital Universitaire Ambroise Paré, Boulogne Billancourt, France.
² INSERM U1018, Equipe 5, CESP (Centre de Recherche en Épidémiologie et Santé des Populations), Université Paris Saclay et Université Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines), Villejuif, France.
³ Service d'Anatomie Pathologique, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP) Université Paris Saclay, Hôpital Universitaire Bicêtre, Kremlin Bicêtre, France.
⁴ Service de Maladies Infectieuses et Médecine Tropicales, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP), Hôpital Universitaire Bicêtre, Kremlin Bicêtre, France.
⁵ Service de Néphrologie, Dialyse et Transplantation, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP), Hôpital Universitaire Bicêtre, Kremlin Bicêtre, France.
⁶ Université Paris Saclay, Villejuif, France.
⁷ Service de MIR, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP), Hôpital Universitaire Ambroise Paré, Boulogne Billancourt, France.
⁸ Service de Virologie, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP), Hôpital Universitaire Paul Brousse, Villejuif, France.

Abstract

Among patients hospitalized for novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), between 10 and 14% develop an acute kidney injury and around half display marked proteinuria and haematuria. Post-mortem analyses of COVID-19 kidney tissue suggest that renal tubular cells and podocytes are affected. Here we report two cases of collapsing glomerulopathy and tubulointerstitial lesions in living COVID-19 patients. Despite our use of sensitive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction techniques in this study, we failed to detect the virus in blood, urine and kidney tissues. Our observations suggest that these kidney lesions are probably not due to direct infection of the kidney by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.

Keywords: APOL1; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; collapsing glomerulopathy; kidney disease.