Ramasamy Santhamani, Quraishi Meysoon, Mukherjee Swastidipa, Mahajan Sonalika, LaBella Lindsey C, Chothe Shubhada K, Jakka Padmaja, Gontu Abhinay, Misra Sougat, Surendran-Nair Meera, Nissly Ruth H, Kuchipudi Suresh V
Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
Center for Vaccine Research, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
Microorganisms. 2025 Mar 5;13(3):600. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms13030600.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to pose a significant threat to public health. Notably, SARS-CoV-2 demonstrates the capacity to infect various non-human animal species, including both captive and free-living animals. Earlier experimental studies revealed low susceptibility of domestic cattle () to ancestral B.1 lineage; however, recent experimental findings indicate greater permissiveness of cattle to SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. While some studies detected evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in cattle in Italy, Germany, India, and Nigeria, currently, there is no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in US cattle. We have investigated over 600 samples, including pre-pandemic and pandemic cattle sera collected from Pennsylvania for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Since serological tests have inherent problems of false positives and negatives, we conducted a comprehensive assessment of multiple serological assays. As there are no known SARS-CoV-2 positive cattle serum samples, we used hyperimmune serum raised in cattle with SARS-CoV-2-spike receptor binding domain (RBD) as positive control for the test validation. We found that pseudovirus neutralization assays with a luciferase reporter system can produce false positive results, and care must be taken to interpret serological diagnosis using these assays. We found no serological evidence of natural SARS-CoV-2 infection or transmission among cattle in the US. This study underscores the importance of robust evaluation when employing serological assays for SARS-CoV-2 detection in cattle populations.
严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）继续对公众健康构成重大威胁。值得注意的是，SARS-CoV-2显示出感染各种非人类动物物种的能力，包括圈养动物和自由生活的动物。早期的实验研究表明家牛对原始B.1谱系的易感性较低；然而，最近的实验结果表明牛对SARS-CoV-2 Delta变体的易感性更高。虽然一些研究在意大利、德国、印度和尼日利亚的牛身上检测到了SARS-CoV-2感染的证据，但目前在美国的牛身上没有SARS-CoV-2感染的证据。我们调查了600多个样本，包括从宾夕法尼亚州收集的大流行前和大流行期间的牛血清，以检测是否存在SARS-CoV-2抗体。由于血清学检测存在假阳性和假阴性的固有问题，我们对多种血清学检测方法进行了全面评估。由于没有已知的SARS-CoV-2阳性牛血清样本，我们使用用SARS-CoV-2刺突受体结合域（RBD）免疫的牛产生的超免疫血清作为检测验证的阳性对照。我们发现，使用荧光素酶报告系统的假病毒中和试验可能会产生假阳性结果，在使用这些试验进行血清学诊断时必须谨慎解释。我们没有发现美国牛群中自然感染或传播SARS-CoV-2的血清学证据。这项研究强调了在牛群中使用血清学检测方法检测SARS-CoV-2时进行严格评估的重要性。
