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Live Imaging and Quantification of Viral Infection in K18 hACE2 Transgenic Mice Using Reporter-Expressing Recombinant SARS-CoV-2
Published on: November 5, 2021
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Comparison of Transgenic and Adenovirus hACE2 Mouse Models for SARS-CoV-2 Infection
Raveen Rathnasinghe1,2,3, Shirin Strohmeier1,3, Fatima Amanat1,3
1Department of Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA.
Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology
|July 18, 2020
Summary
The K18-hACE2 mouse model shows high severe acute respiratory syndrome CoV-2 (SARS-CoV-2) replication in the lung and brain, causing lethality. Adenovirus delivery of human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) results in lower lung viral titers and no severe disease.
Area of Science:
- Virology
- Immunology
- Pathogenesis
Background:
- Severe acute respiratory syndrome CoV-2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes a global pandemic with significant morbidity and mortality.
- Effective animal models are crucial for developing vaccines and antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 and understanding COVID-19 pathogenesis.
- Murine models are challenging due to differences in the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, hindering high-titer SARS-CoV-2 replication.
Conclusions:
- The K18-hACE2 transgenic model is a stringent system for evaluating SARS-CoV-2 countermeasures due to high viral replication and lethality.
- Adenovirus-mediated hACE2 delivery offers flexibility across different mouse strains but is less stringent for therapeutic evaluations.
- Both models contribute to the development of strategies against SARS-CoV-2, with distinct applications in research.
