TY - JOUR T1 - SARS-CoV-2 infection results in lasting and systemic perturbations post recovery JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2022.01.18.476786 SP - 2022.01.18.476786 AU - Justin J. Frere AU - Randal A. Serafini AU - Kerri D. Pryce AU - Marianna Zazhytska AU - Kohei Oishi AU - Ilona Golynker AU - Maryline Panis AU - Jeffrey Zimering AU - Shu Horiuchi AU - Daisy A. Hoagland AU - Rasmus Møller AU - Anne Ruiz AU - Jonathan B. Overdevest AU - Albana Kodra AU - Peter D. Canoll AU - James E. Goldman AU - Alain C. Borczuk AU - Vasuretha Chandar AU - Yaron Bram AU - Robert Schwartz AU - Stavros Lomvardas AU - Venetia Zachariou AU - Benjamin R. tenOever Y1 - 2022/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/20/2022.01.18.476786.abstract N2 - SARS-CoV-2 has been found capable of inducing prolonged pathologies collectively referred to as Long-COVID. To better understand this biology, we compared the short- and long-term systemic responses in the golden hamster following either SARS-CoV-2 or influenza A virus (IAV) infection. While SARS-CoV-2 exceeded IAV in its capacity to cause injury to the lung and kidney, the most significant changes were observed in the olfactory bulb (OB) and olfactory epithelium (OE) where inflammation was visible beyond one month post SARS-CoV-2 infection. Despite a lack of detectable virus, OB/OE demonstrated microglial and T cell activation, proinflammatory cytokine production, and interferon responses that correlated with behavioral changes. These findings could be corroborated through sequencing of individuals who recovered from COVID-19, as sustained inflammation in OB/OE tissue remained evident months beyond disease resolution. These data highlight a molecular mechanism for persistent COVID-19 symptomology and characterize a small animal model to develop future therapeutics.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -