Blanco Jorge C G, Core Susan, Pletneva Lioubov M, March Thomas H, Boukhvalova Marina S, Kajon Adriana E
Sigmovir Biosystems, Inc. Rockville, MD 20850.
Infectious Disease Program, Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, Albuquerque, NM 87108.
Trials Vaccinol. 2014;3:52-60. doi: 10.1016/j.trivac.2014.02.003.
Human rhinoviruses (HRV) represent the single most important etiological agents of the common cold and are the most frequent cause of acute respiratory infections in humans. Currently the performance of available animal models for immunization studies using HRV challenge is very limited. The cotton rat () is a well-recognized model for the study of human respiratory viral infections. In this work we show that, without requiring any genetic modification of either the host or the virus, intranasal infection of cotton rats with HRV16 resulted in measurable lower respiratory tract pathology, mucus production, and expression of interferon-activated genes. Intramuscular immunization with live HRV16 generated robust protective immunity that correlated with high serum levels of neutralizing antibodies. In addition, cotton rats treated prophylactically with hyperimmune anti-HRV16 serum were protected against HRV16 intranasal challenge. Finally, protection by immunization was efficiently transferred from mothers to newborn animals resulting in a substantial reduction of infectious virus loads in the lung following intranasal challenge. Overall, our results demonstrate that the cotton rat provides valuable additional model development options for testing vaccines and prophylactic therapies against rhinovirus infection.
人鼻病毒（HRV）是普通感冒最重要的单一病原体，也是人类急性呼吸道感染最常见的病因。目前，用于HRV攻击免疫研究的现有动物模型的性能非常有限。棉鼠是公认的人类呼吸道病毒感染研究模型。在这项工作中，我们表明，在不需要对宿主或病毒进行任何基因改造的情况下，用HRV16鼻内感染棉鼠会导致可测量的下呼吸道病理、黏液产生和干扰素激活基因的表达。用活的HRV16进行肌肉内免疫可产生强大的保护性免疫，这与高血清水平的中和抗体相关。此外，用超免疫抗HRV16血清进行预防性治疗的棉鼠可免受HRV16鼻内攻击。最后，免疫保护可有效地从母亲传递给新生动物，从而在鼻内攻击后大幅降低肺中的感染性病毒载量。总体而言，我们的结果表明，棉鼠为测试抗鼻病毒感染的疫苗和预防性疗法提供了有价值的额外模型开发选择。
