Centre for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and The Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, Netherlands.
Animal Research Centre, Poonawalla Science Park, Bilthoven, Netherlands.
Front Immunol. 2021 Oct 21;12:750229. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.750229. eCollection 2021.
Improving COVID-19 intervention strategies partly relies on animal models to study SARS-CoV-2 disease and immunity. In our pursuit to establish a model for severe COVID-19, we inoculated young and adult male ferrets intranasally or intratracheally with SARS-CoV-2. Intranasal inoculation established an infection in all ferrets, with viral dissemination into the brain and gut. Upon intratracheal inoculation only adult ferrets became infected. However, neither inoculation route induced observable COVID-19 symptoms. Despite this, a persistent inflammation in the nasal turbinates was prominent in especially young ferrets and follicular hyperplasia in the bronchi developed 21 days post infection. These effects -if sustained- might resemble long-COVID. Respiratory and systemic cellular responses and antibody responses were induced only in animals with an established infection. We conclude that intranasally-infected ferrets resemble asymptomatic COVID-19 and possibly aspects of long-COVID. Combined with the increasing portfolio to measure adaptive immunity, ferrets are a relevant model for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine research.
改善 COVID-19 干预策略部分依赖于动物模型来研究 SARS-CoV-2 疾病和免疫。在我们努力建立严重 COVID-19 模型的过程中，我们通过鼻腔或气管内接种将 SARS-CoV-2 接种到年轻和成年雄性雪貂体内。鼻腔内接种使所有雪貂都感染了病毒，病毒传播到大脑和肠道。通过气管内接种，只有成年雪貂被感染。然而，两种接种途径都没有引起明显的 COVID-19 症状。尽管如此，鼻腔鼻甲中的持续性炎症在年轻雪貂中尤为明显，并且感染后 21 天支气管中出现滤泡增生。如果这些影响持续存在，可能类似于长 COVID。只有在建立感染的动物中才会诱导呼吸道和全身细胞反应和抗体反应。我们得出结论，鼻腔内感染的雪貂类似于无症状 COVID-19 和可能的长 COVID 方面。结合不断增加的适应性免疫测量组合，雪貂是 SARS-CoV-2 疫苗研究的相关模型。
