Pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5 and BE.1 Variants in Syrian Hamsters and hACE2-transgenic Mmice

Inna Dolzhikova; Daria Grousova; Ilia Zorkov; Anna Kovyrshina; Anna Iliukhina; Artem Shelkov; Andrei Botikov; Nadezhda Kuznetsova; Andrei Pochtovyi; Grigory Demyashkin; Alisa Suslova; Andrei Nedorubov; Andrei Komissarov; Daria Danilenko; Dmitry Lioznov; Amir Tukhvatulin; Dmitry Shcheblyakov; Vladimir Gushchin; Denis Logunov; Alexander Gintsburg

doi:10.20944/preprints202212.0202.v1

How to cite: Dolzhikova, I.; Grousova, D.; Zorkov, I.; Kovyrshina, A.; Iliukhina, A.; Shelkov, A.; Botikov, A.; Kuznetsova, N.; Pochtovyi, A.; Demyashkin, G.; Suslova, A.; Nedorubov, A.; Komissarov, A.; Danilenko, D.; Lioznov, D.; Tukhvatulin, A.; Shcheblyakov, D.; Gushchin, V.; Logunov, D.; Gintsburg, A. Pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5 and BE.1 Variants in Syrian Hamsters and hACE2-transgenic Mmice. Preprints 2022, 2022120202. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202212.0202.v1 Dolzhikova, I.; Grousova, D.; Zorkov, I.; Kovyrshina, A.; Iliukhina, A.; Shelkov, A.; Botikov, A.; Kuznetsova, N.; Pochtovyi, A.; Demyashkin, G.; Suslova, A.; Nedorubov, A.; Komissarov, A.; Danilenko, D.; Lioznov, D.; Tukhvatulin, A.; Shcheblyakov, D.; Gushchin, V.; Logunov, D.; Gintsburg, A. Pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5 and BE.1 Variants in Syrian Hamsters and hACE2-transgenic Mmice. Preprints 2022, 2022120202. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202212.0202.v1

Abstract

A new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5 virus has displaced all previous variants of the virus around the world. Preliminary assessment of the effectiveness of drugs for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 requires the availability of infection models in animals. In this study, we characterize the infection model SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5 and its progeny sublineage BE.1 in hACE2-transgenic mice and in Syrian hamsters. Both sublineages turned out to be pathogenic for animals – the challenged animals showed weight loss, a high level of viral load and acute inflammation in the lungs. Part of BA.5-infected mice died after virus challenge, indicating that this virus variant is more pathogenic than the previous BA.1 variant but less pathogenic than Wuhan variant.

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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.

Pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5 and BE.1 Variants in Syrian Hamsters and hACE2-transgenic Mmice

Abstract

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