Experimental infection of domestic dogs and cats with SARS-CoV-2: Pathogenesis, transmission, and response to reexposure in cats

  1. Angela M. Bosco-Lauth
  2. Airn E. Hartwig
  3. Stephanie M. Porter
  4. Paul W. Gordy
  5. Mary Nehring
  6. Alex D. Byas
  7. Sue VandeWoude
  8. Izabela K. Ragan
  9. Rachel M. Maison
  10. Richard A. Bowen

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Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 is an emerging pathogen that has already had catastrophic consequences on the health and well-being of people worldwide. As a zoonotic virus, the implications for animal populations are largely unknown. This manuscript describes a pilot study in which domestic cats and dogs were assessed for their susceptibility to infection. While neither species developed clinical disease in this study, cats shed infectious virus for up to 5 d and infected naive cats via direct contact, while dogs do not appear to shed virus. Cats that were reinfected with SARS-CoV-2 mounted an effective immune response and did not become reinfected. These studies have important implications for animal health and suggest that cats may be a good model for vaccine development.

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  1. Version published to 10.1073/pnas.2013102117
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.28.120998: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableAnimals: Seven adult (1 male, 6 female, 5-8 year old) cats were obtained from a closed breeding colony held at Colorado State University in a pathogen-free environment in an Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International accredited animal facility.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    Positive control antibodies to the receptor-binding domain (RBD) and full-length spike protein were human MAb CR3022 antibody (Absolute Antibody, Oxford UK) and human IgG whole molecule (Jackson Immuno Research, West Grove PA, USA).
    human IgG whole molecule
    suggested: None
    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    Virus: SARS2 virus strain WA1/2020WY96 was obtained from BEI Resources (Manassas, VA, USA), passaged twice in E6 Vero cells and stocks frozen at −80C in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) with 5% fetal bovine serum and antibiotics.
    Vero
    suggested: None
    Virus stock was titrated on Vero E6 cells using standard double overlay plaque assay (Kropinsky et al. 2008) and plaques counted 72 hours post-infection to determine plaque-forming units (pfu) per ml.
    Vero E6
    suggested: None
    ELISA plates (Thermo) were coated at 2ug/ml with spike glycoprotein Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) from SARS-CoV-2, WuHan-Hu-1 recombinant from HEK293T cells (BEI), or Spike glycoprotein (Stabilized) from SARS-CoV-2, Wuhan-Hu-1, recombinant from Baculovirus (BEI).
    HEK293T
    suggested: NCBI_Iran Cat# C498, RRID:CVCL_0063)
    , Recombinant from HEK293 Cells, NR-52306, and Spike Glycoprotein (Stabilized) from SARS-Related Coronavirus 2, Wuhan-Hu-1
    HEK293
    suggested: None

    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 10.1101/2020.05.28.120998v1 on bioRxiv