Viruses, Vol. 15, Pages 999: Virulence Profiles of Wild-Type, P.1 and Delta SARS-CoV-2 Variants in K18-hACE2 Transgenic Mice

Viruses, Vol. 15, Pages 999: Virulence Profiles of Wild-Type, P.1 and Delta SARS-CoV-2 Variants in K18-hACE2 Transgenic Mice Viruses doi: 10.3390/v15040999 Authors: Yasmin da Silva Santos Thais Helena Martins Gamon Marcela Santiago Pacheco de Azevedo Bruna Larotonda Telezynski Edmarcia Elisa de Souza Danielle Bruna Leal de Oliveira Jamille Gregório Dombrowski Livia Rosa-Fernandes Giuseppe Palmisano Leonardo José de Moura Carvalho Maria Cecília Rui Luvizotto Carsten Wrenger Dimas Tadeu Covas Rui Curi Claudio Romero Farias Marinho Edison Luiz Durigon Sabrina Epiphanio Since December 2019, the world has been experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and we now face the emergence of several variants. We aimed to assess the differences between the wild-type (Wt) (Wuhan) strain and the P.1 (Gamma) and Delta variants using infected K18-hACE2 mice. The clinical manifestations, behavior, virus load, pulmonary capacity, and histopathological alterations were analyzed. The P.1-infected mice showed weight loss and more severe clinical manifestations of COVID-19 than the Wt and Delta-infected mice. The respiratory capacity was reduced in the P.1-infected mice compared to the other groups. Pulmonary histological findings demonstrated that a more aggressive disease was generated by the P.1 and Delta variants compared to the Wt strain of the virus. The quantification of the SARS-Co...
Source: Viruses - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research