Susceptibility of tree shrew to SARS-CoV-2 infection

  1. Yuan Zhao
  2. Junbin Wang
  3. Dexuan Kuang
  4. Jingwen Xu
  5. Mengli Yang
  6. Chunxia Ma
  7. Siwen Zhao
  8. Jingmei Li
  9. Haiting Long
  10. Kaiyun Ding
  11. Jiahong Gao
  12. Jiansheng Liu
  13. Haixuan Wang
  14. Haiyan Li
  15. Yun Yang
  16. Wenhai Yu
  17. Jing Yang
  18. Yinqiu Zheng
  19. Daoju Wu
  20. Shuaiyao Lu
  21. Hongqi Liu
  22. Xiaozhong Peng

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Abstract

Since severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) became a pandemic event in the world, it has not only caused huge economic losses, but also a serious threat to global public health. Many scientific questions about SARS-CoV-2 and Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were raised and urgently need to be answered, including the susceptibility of animals to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here we tested whether tree shrew, an emerging experimental animal domesticated from wild animal, is susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection. No clinical signs were observed in SARS-CoV-2 inoculated tree shrews during this experiment except the increasing body temperature particularly in female animals. Low levels of virus shedding and replication in tissues occurred in all three age groups. Notably, young tree shrews (6 months to 12 months) showed virus shedding at the earlier stage of infection than adult (2 years to 4 years) and old (5 years to 7 years) animals that had longer duration of virus shedding comparatively. Histopathological examine revealed that pulmonary abnormalities were the main changes but mild although slight lesions were also observed in other tissues. In summary, tree shrew is less susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with the reported animal models and may not be a suitable animal for COVID-19 related researches. However, tree shrew may be a potential intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2 as an asymptomatic carrier.

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  1. Version published to 10.1038/s41598-020-72563-w
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.30.029736: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIACUC: All animal procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Institute of Medical Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Science (Ethics number: DWSP202002 001), and performed in the ABSL-3 facility of National Kunming High-level Biosafety Primate Research Center, Yunnan China.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableEach group contains half male and half female animals.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.30.029736v1 on bioRxiv