RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Neuroinvasion and anosmia are independent phenomena upon infection with SARS-CoV-2 and its variants
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.08.31.505985
DO 10.1101/2022.08.31.505985
A1 Guilherme Dias de Melo
A1 Victoire Perraud
A1 Flavio Alvarez
A1 Alba Vieites-Prado
A1 Seonhee Kim
A1 Lauriane Kergoat
A1 Bettina Salome Trüeb
A1 Magali Tichit
A1 Aurèle Piazza
A1 Agnès Thierry
A1 David Hardy
A1 Nicolas Wolff
A1 Sandie Munier
A1 Romain Koszul
A1 Etienne Simon-Lorière
A1 Volker Thiel
A1 Marc Lecuit
A1 Pierre-Marie Lledo
A1 Nicolas Renier
A1 Florence Larrous
A1 Hervé Bourhy
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/08/31/2022.08.31.505985.abstract
AB Anosmia was identified as a hallmark of COVID-19 early in the pandemic, however, with the emergence of variants of concern, the clinical profile induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection has changed, with anosmia being less frequent. Several studies have focused on the neuropathogenesis of the original SARS-CoV-2, but little is known about the neuropathological potential of the variants. Here, we assessed the clinical, olfactory and inflammatory conditions of golden hamsters infected with the original SARS-CoV-2, its ORF7-deleted mutant, and three variants: Gamma, Delta and Omicron/BA.1. We show that infected animals developed a variant-dependent clinical disease, and that the ORF7 of SARS-CoV-2 contribute to causing olfactory disturbances. Conversely, all SARS-CoV-2 variants were found to be neuroinvasive, regardless of the clinical presentation they induce. With newly-generated nanoluciferase-expressing SARS-CoV-2, we validated the olfactory pathway as a main entry point towards the brain, confirming that neuroinvasion and anosmia are independent phenomena upon SARS-CoV-2 infection.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.