1. Susceptibility of Well-Differentiated Airway Epithelial Cell Cultures from Domestic and Wild Animals to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2
- Author
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Philip V'kovski, Tran Thi Nhu Thao, Andres Moreira-Soto, Bevan Sawatsky, Nicolas Ruggli, Patrik Zanolari, Simone Schuller, Manon Wider, Volker Thiel, Eugenia Corrales-Aguilar, Annika Kratzel, Horst Posthaus, Melle Holwerda, Corinne Gurtner, Nadine Stokar-Regenscheit, Amanda Vicente-Santos, Lukas Probst, Hanspeter Stalder, Nadine Ebert, Gergely Tekes, Matthias Licheri, Veronika von Messling, Laura Laloli, Jasmine Portmann, Ronald Dijkman, Marina Strässle, Silvio Steiner, and Mitra L. Gultom
- Subjects
Microbiology (medical) ,Disease reservoir ,Epidemiology ,Susceptibility of Well-Differentiated Airway Epithelial Cell Cultures from Domestic and Wild Animals to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 ,viruses ,Respiratory System ,severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 ,Animals, Wild ,Infectious and parasitic diseases ,RC109-216 ,Biology ,epidemics ,03 medical and health sciences ,respiratory infections ,medicine ,Animals ,Humans ,Respiratory system ,Animal testing ,skin and connective tissue diseases ,030304 developmental biology ,Original Research ,Whole genome sequencing ,0303 health sciences ,whole genome sequencing ,CATS ,030306 microbiology ,SARS-CoV-2 ,Research ,fungi ,Outbreak ,COVID-19 ,disease reservoirs ,respiratory system ,Virology ,Epithelium ,epithelial cells ,3. Good health ,zoonoses ,respiratory tract diseases ,Infectious Diseases ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,coronavirus disease ,outbreaks ,animal experimentation ethics ,Medicine ,Airway - Abstract
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread globally, and the number of worldwide cases continues to rise. The zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2 and its intermediate and potential spillback host reservoirs, besides humans, remain largely unknown. Because of ethical and experimental constraints and more important, to reduce and refine animal experimentation, we used our repository of well-differentiated airway epithelial cell (AEC) cultures from various domesticated and wildlife animal species to assess their susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2. We observed that SARS-CoV-2 replicated efficiently only in monkey and cat AEC culture models. Whole-genome sequencing of progeny viruses revealed no obvious signs of nucleotide transitions required for SARS-CoV-2 to productively infect monkey and cat AEC cultures. Our findings, together with previous reports of human-to-animal spillover events, warrant close surveillance to determine the potential role of cats, monkeys, and closely related species as spillback reservoirs for SARS-CoV-2.
- Published
- 2021