Hello everybody ,
I have a question for those working in the SARS-CoV-2 field. Does anyone of you have some good argument to explain why to use the hamster model(Syrian golden hamster) VS the mouse model (either K18-hACE2 or regular mice infected with mouse adapted SARSCOV2 strain) for COVID-19?
many thanks in advance
have a nice day
Federico
Hello Federico Armando
HAMSTERS
The hamster model has emerged as one that more closely recapitulates moderate disease in humans. Hamsters are highly susceptible to infection with SARS-CoV-2, without the need for prior adaptation. Hamster not only develop respiratory disease after SAR CoV-2 infection (severe pneumonia like in COVID-19 patients), but also display some important clinical hallmarks such as anosmia, neurotropism and vascular inflammation.
This animal model would be a valuable model to improve our understanding of the pathogenesis of lung injury caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection. The hamster model is a useful tool for studies on SARS-CoV-2 transmission as well.
Hamsters have been shown to be infected through intranasal, oral, and ophthalmic routes by SARS-CoV-2 with respectively descending lung viral load and pathologies.
SARS-CoV-2 infection in hamsters induces an acute immune activation, chemotaxis, and expansion of immune cell populations at the peak of infection that resembles the cytokine storm patterns reported in symptomatic COVID-19 patients.
Moreover, huACE2 and haACE2 receptors have been shown to share major sequence homology. Such similarities between huACE2 and haACE2 strongly point to interaction with SARS-CoV-2 RBD protein with a similar trend of binding affinity. Hamsters as a preclinical SARS-CoV-2 infection model is shown to mimic viral entry and replication in a manner naturally similar to humans, and therefore hamsters can be regarded as a suitable and natural model for SARS-CoV-2 studies.
Also, hamsters tend to lose weight rapidly after experimental infection with SAR CoV-2 infection reaching to 5% to20% body weight loss at the peak of infection. Furthermore, the disease development may also be related to the age of the used hamster with older hamsters showing more disease progression.
Importantly, the use of this animal model would facilitate the rapid evaluation of vaccine or antiviral therapy candidates at a relatively low cost compared to other animal models such as ferrets and nonhuman primates.
Thus, the Golden Syrian hamster could be an appropriate and valuable model to study both early SARS-CoV-2 infection and post infection sequelae.
MICE
Compared to hamster, several murine models are available which include infection of common laboratory strains with mouse-adapted SARCoV-2 and infection of mice expressing huACE2 transgenically or of mice with knock-in of huACE2.
Use of mice as a model has the advantage of well-characterized genetics and the availability of mice that are completely or conditionally deleted in genes of interest. In addition, the vast existence of reagents to study immune responses in mice also allows a much better characterization of the immunology related to SAR Co-2 compared to hamster.
You may also refer to the articles attached below for more information.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2009799117#:~:text=We%20found%20that%20SARS%2DCoV,COVID%2D19%20patients%20with%20pneumonia.
https://elifesciences.org/articles/73522
Hope this will help!
Best.
I think you'd need to decide this per case, based on the drug you plan to try and its target/s. Some target proteins -for example- could differ in critical regions/amino acids across species; altering the drug response. Therefore, I'd suggest you compare potential target human proteins with those of the available animal model.
Thank you very much,both of you, for sharing your comprehensive and insightful point of view on the topic, it ws very useful.
I wish you a pleasant day
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