Institut für Virologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Institut für Tierpathologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Transbound Emerg Dis. 2021 May;68(3):1075-1079. doi: 10.1111/tbed.13837. Epub 2020 Sep 25.
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused a yet unresolved global crisis. Effective medical intervention by vaccination or therapy seems to be the only possibility to control the pandemic. In this context, animal models are an indispensable tool for basic and applied research to combat SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here, we established a SARS-CoV-2 infection model in Chinese hamsters suitable for studying pathogenesis of the disease as well as pre-clinical testing of vaccines and therapies. This species of hamster is susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection as demonstrated by robust virus replication in the upper and lower respiratory tract accompanied by bronchitis and pneumonia as well as significant body weight loss following infection. The Chinese hamster features advantages compared to the Syrian hamster model, including more pronounced clinical symptoms, its small size, well-characterized genome, transcriptome and translatome data and availability of molecular tools.
SARS-CoV-2 大流行造成了一场尚未解决的全球危机。通过接种疫苗或治疗进行有效的医学干预似乎是控制大流行的唯一可能性。在这种情况下，动物模型是针对 SARS-CoV-2 感染进行基础和应用研究的不可或缺的工具。在这里，我们建立了一种适合研究疾病发病机制以及疫苗和疗法临床前测试的 SARS-CoV-2 感染模型。这种仓鼠对 SARS-CoV-2 感染敏感，在上呼吸道和下呼吸道中均表现出强烈的病毒复制，伴有支气管炎和肺炎，感染后体重明显减轻。与叙利亚仓鼠模型相比，中国仓鼠具有优势，包括更明显的临床症状、体型小、基因组、转录组和翻译组数据特征明确以及分子工具的可用性。
