Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

A Time-series Metabolomic Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in a Ferret Model

Avinash V. Karpe
,
Thao V. Nguyen
,
Rohan Shah
ORCID logo ,
Gough G. Au
,
Alexander J. McAuley
ORCID logo ,
Glenn A. Marsh
ORCID logo ,
Sarah Riddell
,
Seshadri S. Vasan
ORCID logo ,
David J. Beale
* ORCID logo
Version 1 : Received: 20 October 2022 / Approved: 21 October 2022 / Online: 21 October 2022 (03:55:09 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Karpe, A.V.; Nguyen, T.V.; Shah, R.M.; Au, G.G.; McAuley, A.J.; Marsh, G.A.; Riddell, S.; Vasan, S.S.; Beale, D.J. A Time-Series Metabolomic Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in a Ferret Model. Metabolites 2022, 12, 1151. Karpe, A.V.; Nguyen, T.V.; Shah, R.M.; Au, G.G.; McAuley, A.J.; Marsh, G.A.; Riddell, S.; Vasan, S.S.; Beale, D.J. A Time-Series Metabolomic Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in a Ferret Model. Metabolites 2022, 12, 1151.

Abstract

The global threat of COVID-19 has led to the increasing use of metabolomics to study SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans and animals. Despite this, understanding SARS-CoV-2's metabolome during infection remains difficult and incomplete. Here, metabolic responses were characterized from sampled nasal washes collected from an asymptomatic ferret model (n = 20) at different time points before and after the SARS-CoV-2 challenge using an LC-MS-based metabolomics approach. Multivariate analysis of the nasal wash metabolome data resulted in several statistically significant features being observed. Despite no effects of gender or interaction between gender and time on the time course of SARS-CoV-2 infection, 16 metabolites were significantly different at every time point post-infection. Among these altered metabolites, the relative abundance of taurine was elevated post infection which could be an indication of hepatotoxicity, while the accumulation of sialic acids could indicate SARS-CoV-2 invasion. The pathway analysis identified several pathways influenced by SARS-CoV-2 infection. Of these, sugar, glycan, and amino acid metabolisms were the key altered pathways in the upper respiratory channel during infection. These findings provide some new insights into the progression of SARS-CoV-2 infection in ferrets at the metabolic level which could be useful for the development of early clinical diagnosis tools and new or repurposed drug therapies.

Keywords

COVID19; SARS-CoV-2; metabolomics; omics; animal models; ferret; host metabolic responses

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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