Author: Akhmetova Aigerim
Editor: Merentsova Anastasia
SARS-CoV-2 is the new coronavirus responsible for the outbreak of COVID-19, a disease that has spread to over 100 countries and, as of 26 July 2020, has infected more than 16 million people. At the same time, in order to develop medical approaches and new methods of treating COVID-19, the issue of the lack of suitable animal models for testing diagnostic and therapeutic measures has become acute. For the COVID-19 virus itself, S-proteins serve as the main vehicle for infecting cells.
During the study, it turned out that SARS-CoV-2 is able to exploit ACE 2 (angiotensin-converting enzyme, protein) S-proteins. For more detailed information on this, including the study of the body's response to the introduced agent, the Chinese horseshoe bat, civet, pig and mouse were taken as models. An in-depth analysis showed that all of the above animals are suitable, with the exception of the mouse. It turned out that the virus is not capable of infecting a pig, cow and mouse. SARS-CoV-2 cannot use mouse ACE2 for invasion.
This study suggests that macaque, hamster, and ferret are currently the most suitable models for studies looking at the interaction of ACE2 and S. Ideal animal models should be infected in the same way as humans, have similar symptoms, the relationship between the severity of the disease and viral load, have similar cellular changes, the kinetics of virus growth and comparable mortality rates, only then the research and testing will be effective and applicable in the future. to the human body.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32985513/
