ACE2 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: However, the spatially resolved data in this report shows for the first time that the alveolar epithelium of patients with COPD is the region where COPD patients who died of COVID-19 had the highest number of differentially expressed genes compared to never- and ever-smoker controls, including ACE2 and TMRPSS2, while showing blunted memory T lymphocyte responses.