The Omicron Sub-Variant BA.4 Displays a Remarkable Lack of Clinical Signs in a Golden Syrian Hamster Model of SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Davies, E.R.; Ryan, K.A.; Bewley, K.R.; Coombes, N.S.; Salguero, F.J.; Carnell, O.T.; Biddlecombe, S.; Charlton, M.; Challis, A.; Cross, E.S.; Handley, A.; Ngabo, D.; Weldon, T.M.; Hall, Y.; Funnell, S.G.P. The Omicron Sub-Variant BA.4 Displays a Remarkable Lack of Clinical Signs in a Golden Syrian Hamster Model of SARS-CoV-2 Infection. Viruses 2023, 15, 1133. Davies, E.R.; Ryan, K.A.; Bewley, K.R.; Coombes, N.S.; Salguero, F.J.; Carnell, O.T.; Biddlecombe, S.; Charlton, M.; Challis, A.; Cross, E.S.; Handley, A.; Ngabo, D.; Weldon, T.M.; Hall, Y.; Funnell, S.G.P. The Omicron Sub-Variant BA.4 Displays a Remarkable Lack of Clinical Signs in a Golden Syrian Hamster Model of SARS-CoV-2 Infection. Viruses 2023, 15, 1133.

Abstract

The ongoing emergence of SARS-CoV-2 virus variants remains a source of concern because it is accompanied by the potential for increased virulence as well as evasion of immunity. Here we show that, although having an almost identical spike gene sequence as another Omicron variant (BA.5.2.1), a BA.4 isolate lacked all the typical disease characteristics of other isolates seen in the Golden Syrian hamster model despite replicating almost as effectively. Animals infected with BA.4 had similar viral shedding profiles to that seen with BA.5.2.1 (up to day 6 post infection) but they all failed to lose weight or present with any other significant clinical signs. We hypothesize that this lack of detectable signs of disease during infection with BA.4 was due to a small (nine nucleotide) deletion (∆686-694) in the viral genome (ORF1ab) responsible for production of non-structural protein 1 which resulted in the loss of three amino acids (aa 141-143).

Keywords

SARS-CoV-2; Syrian hamster; animal model; coronavirus

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Virology

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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