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COVID-19 Omicron variant leads to less severe disease in mice, study finds

Date:
June 27, 2022
Source:
Georgia State University
Summary:
研究人员发现老鼠更容易得到正无穷ected by Omicron than other variants but with significantly lower mortality rates.
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Georgia State University researchers have found that the Alpha, Beta and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 were substantially more fatal in mouse models than the original strain of the virus that causes COVID-19. However, they also found that the Omicron variant, despite having more mutations, led to less severe disease with half as many deaths and longer survival time.

The findings, published in a study in the journalViruses, offer new information on how the COVID-19 virus changes over time, and how those changes are leading to different kinds of infections.

"Given the speed that variants have emerged over the course of the pandemic, and may continue to emerge, we always want to predict how these variants will behave," said Mukesh Kumar, assistant professor of biology and the paper's lead researcher. "We want to know if the next variants will become more lethal than the one before, or weaker, or if it's a random process."

In the study, researchers looked at how variants acted in mouse models, examining the effects of the original strain compared to Alpha, Beta, Delta and Omicron variants.

They found that infection with the Alpha, Beta and Delta strains led to higher virus levels in lungs and brains, significant loss of body weight, more inflammation and a 100 percent mortality rate among study subjects.

The Omicron variant was much milder with lower virus levels, less lung inflammation, lower rates of weight loss and a 50 percent mortality rate. This was despite the Omicron variant having more mutations that allow it to bind with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, also known as the ACE2 "receptor," which is a protein the virus binds with so it can infect cells.

"In mice, Omicron was significantly less efficient than the other variants we tested, despite carrying the highest number of mutations," said Kumar. "That tracks along with epidemiological data that suggests that the Omicron virus causes less severe pathology in humans than previous ancestral strains."

Most studies done in mouse models have been with the original virus strain first identified in Wuhan, China, which has been helpful but not informative in our current variant reality, Kumar said. These insights into the pathogenesis of the earlier and currently circulating variants help in understanding the pathogenesis of emerging COVID-19 variants.

The other authors of the study are biology Ph.D. students Janhavi Prasad Natekar, Heather Pathak, Shannon Stone, Pratima Kumari, Shaligram Sharma and Tabassum Tasnim Auroni; and post-doctoral fellows Komal Arora and Hussin Alwan Rothan, all of Georgia State.

The paper is titled "Differential Pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern in Human ACE2-Expressing Mice."

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Story Source:

Materialsprovided byGeorgia State University.注意:内容可能被编辑风格d length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Janhavi Prasad Natekar, Heather Pathak, Shannon Stone, Pratima Kumari, Shaligram Sharma, Tabassum Tasnim Auroni, Komal Arora, Hussin Alwan Rothan, Mukesh Kumar.Differential Pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern in Human ACE2-Expressing Mice.Viruses, 2022; 14 (6): 1139 DOI:10.3390/v14061139

Cite This Page:

Georgia State University. "COVID-19 Omicron variant leads to less severe disease in mice, study finds." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 June 2022. .
Georgia State University. (2022, June 27). COVID-19 Omicron variant leads to less severe disease in mice, study finds.ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 29, 2023 from www.koonmotors.com/releases/2022/06/220627141446.htm
Georgia State University. "COVID-19 Omicron variant leads to less severe disease in mice, study finds." ScienceDaily. www.koonmotors.com/releases/2022/06/220627141446.htm (accessed July 29, 2023).

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