RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 “Acute Respiratory Distress and Cytokine Storm in Aged, SARS-CoV-2 Infected African Green Monkeys, but not in Rhesus Macaques”
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.06.18.157933
DO 10.1101/2020.06.18.157933
A1 Robert V. Blair
A1 Monica Vaccari
A1 Lara A. Doyle-Meyers
A1 Chad J Roy
A1 Kasi Russell-Lodrigue
A1 Marissa Fahlberg
A1 Chris J. Monjure
A1 Brandon Beddingfield
A1 Kenneth S. Plante
A1 Jessica A. Plante
A1 Scott C. Weaver
A1 Xuebin Qin
A1 Cecily C. Midkiff
A1 Gabrielle Lehmicke
A1 Nadia Golden
A1 Breanna Threeton
A1 Toni Penney
A1 Carolina Allers
A1 Mary B Barnes
A1 Melissa Pattison
A1 Prasun K Datta
A1 Nicholas J Maness
A1 Angela Birnbaum
A1 Tracy Fischer
A1 Rudolf P. Bohm
A1 Jay Rappaport
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/08/11/2020.06.18.157933.abstract
AB SARS-CoV-2 induces a wide range of disease severity ranging from asymptomatic infection, to a life-threating illness, particularly in the elderly and persons with comorbid conditions. Among those persons with serious COVID-19 disease, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a common and often fatal presentation. Animal models of SARS-CoV-2 infection that manifest severe disease are needed to investigate the pathogenesis of COVID-19 induced ARDS and evaluate therapeutic strategies. Here we report ARDS in two aged African green monkeys (AGMs) infected with SARS-CoV-2 that demonstrated pathological lesions and disease similar to severe COVID-19 in humans. We also report a comparatively mild COVID-19 phenotype characterized by minor clinical, radiographic and histopathologic changes in the two surviving, aged AGMs and four rhesus macaques (RMs) infected with SARS-CoV-2. We found dramatic increases in circulating cytokines in three of four infected, aged AGMs but not in infected RMs. All of the AGMs showed increased levels of plasma IL-6 compared to baseline, a predictive marker and presumptive therapeutic target in humans infected with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Together, our results show that both RM and AGM are capable of modeling SARS-CoV-2 infection and suggest that aged AGMs may be useful for modeling severe disease manifestations including ARDS.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.