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Defining the Syrian hamster as a highly susceptible preclinical model for SARS-CoV-2 infection.

ABSTRACT: Following emergence in late 2019, SARS-CoV-2 rapidly became pandemic and is presently responsible for millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. There is currently no approved vaccine to halt the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and only very few treatment options are available to manage COVID-19 patients. For development of preclinical countermeasures, reliable and well-characterized small animal disease models will be of paramount importance. Here we show that intranasal inoculation of SARS-CoV-2 into Syrian hamsters consistently caused moderate broncho-interstitial pneumonia, with high viral lung loads and extensive virus shedding, but animals only displayed transient mild disease. We determined the infectious dose 50 to be only five infectious particles, making the Syrian hamster a highly susceptible model for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Neither hamster age nor sex had any impact on the severity of disease or course of infection. Finally, prolonged viral persistence in interleukin 2 receptor gamma chain knockout hamsters revealed susceptibility of SARS-CoV-2 to adaptive immune control. In conclusion, the Syrian hamster is highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 making it a very suitable infection model for COVID-19 countermeasure development.

SUBMITTER: Rosenke K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7782266 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Coronaviruses belong to a well-known family of enveloped RNA viruses and the causative agent of the common cold. Although the seasonal coronaviruses do not pose a threat to human life, three members of this family, i.e., SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and recently, SARS-CoV2, may cause severe acute respiratory syndrome that may lead to death. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has already caused more than 4,4 million deaths worldwide. Although much is better understood about the immunopathogenesis of the lung disease, important information about systemic disease is still missing, mainly concerning neurological parameters. In this context, we sought to evaluate immunometabolic changes using in vitro and in vivo models of hamsters infected with SARS-CoV2. Here show that, besides infecting and replicating in glial cells, SARS-CoV2 induces important changes in protein expression and metabolic pathways, specially involved in carbon metabolism, glycolysis, and mitochondrial respiration. Interestingly, many of the differentially expressed proteins during SARS-CoV2 infection overlapped with proteins correlated with neurological diseases, such as Parkinsons's Disease, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Huntington's disease. Metabolic analysis by high resolution real-time respirometry evidenced hyperactivation of glycolysis and mitochondrial respiration, which was confirmed by metabolomics. Brain infection with SARS-CoV2 was confirmed in vivo as hippocampus, cortex and olfactory bulb of infected hamsters were positive for viral genome both at 4 and 7 days post-infection. Unexpectedly, we observed that glutamine was significantly reduced in mixed glial cells infected with SARS-CoV2 and that the blockade of glutaminolysis significantly reduced viral replication and pro-inflammatory response. Altogether, our data confirms the infection of brain cells by SARS-CoV2 but, most importantly, there is an important change in overall protein expression profile, mostly of proteins related to metabolic pathways. This may suggest that some of the neurological impairments observed during COVID-19, as the brain fog and cognitive impairment, may rely on altered protein expression and unbalanced glutamine/glutamate levels, whose importance for adequate brain function is unquestionable.

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Defining the Syrian hamster as a highly susceptible preclinical model for SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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