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Cynomolgus Macaque Model for COVID-19 Delta Variant

  • Seung Ho Baek (National Primate Research Centre, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB)) ;
  • Hanseul Oh (National Primate Research Centre, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB)) ;
  • Bon-Sang Koo (National Primate Research Centre, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB)) ;
  • Green Kim (National Primate Research Centre, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB)) ;
  • Eun-Ha Hwang (National Primate Research Centre, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB)) ;
  • Hoyin Jung (National Primate Research Centre, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB)) ;
  • You Jung An (National Primate Research Centre, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB)) ;
  • Jae-Hak Park (Department of Laboratory Animal Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Seoul National University) ;
  • Jung Joo Hong (National Primate Research Centre, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB))
  • Received : 2022.05.10
  • Accepted : 2022.08.24
  • Published : 2022.12.31
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Abstract

With the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants, which are randomly mutated, the dominant strains in regions are changing globally. The development of preclinical animal models is imperative to validate vaccines and therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2 variants. The objective of this study was to develop a non-human primate (NHP) model for SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant infection. Cynomolgus macaques infected with Delta variants showed infectious viruses and viral RNA in the upper (nasal and throat) and lower respiratory (lung) tracts during the acute phase of infection. After 3 days of infection, lesions consistent with diffuse alveolar damage were observed in the lungs. For cellular immune responses, all macaques displayed transient lymphopenia and neutrophilia in the early stages of infection. SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant spike protein-specific IgM, IgG, and IgA levels were significantly increased in the plasma of these animals 14 days after infection. This new NHP Delta variant infection model can be used for comparative analysis of the difference in severity between SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and may be useful in the efficacy evaluation of vaccines and universal therapeutic drugs for mutations.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT of Korea (Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research Initiative Programs [grant number KGM 4572222]) and the Korea Centers for Disease Control Prevention (grant number 2021-ER1608-00).

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