Surface-aerosol stability and pathogenicity of diverse MERS-CoV strains from 2012 - 2018

  1. Neeltje van Doremalen
  2. Michael Letko
  3. Robert J. Fischer
  4. Trenton Bushmaker
  5. Claude Kwe Yinda
  6. Jonathan Schulz
  7. Stephanie N. Seifert
  8. Nam Joong Kim
  9. Maged G Hemida
  10. Ghazi Kayali
  11. Wan Beom Park
  12. Ranawaka APM Perera
  13. Azaibi Tamin
  14. Natalie J. Thornburg
  15. Suxiang Tong
  16. Krista Queen
  17. Maria D. van Kerkhove
  18. Young Ki Choi
  19. Myoung-don Oh
  20. Abdullah M. Assiri
  21. Malik Peiris
  22. Susan I. Gerber
  23. Vincent J. Munster

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Abstract

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a coronavirus that infects both humans and dromedary camels and is responsible for an ongoing outbreak of severe respiratory illness in humans in the Middle East. While some mutations found in camel-derived MERS-CoV strains have been characterized, the majority of natural variation found across MERS-CoV isolates remains unstudied. Here we report on the environmental stability, replication kinetics and pathogenicity of several diverse isolates of MERS-CoV as well as SARS-CoV-2 to serve as a basis of comparison with other stability studies. While most of the MERS-CoV isolates exhibited similar stability and pathogenicity in our experiments, the camel derived isolate, C/KSA/13, exhibited reduced surface stability while another camel isolate, C/BF/15, had reduced pathogenicity in a small animal model. These results suggest that while betacoronaviruses may have similar environmental stability profiles, individual variation can influence this phenotype, underscoring the importance of continual, global viral surveillance.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.11.429193: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIACUC: Ethical approval: Animal experiment approval was obtained by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at Rocky Mountain Laboratories.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    Specific anti-CoV immunoreactivity was detected using MERS-CoV nucleocapsid protein rabbit antibody (Sino Biological Inc.) at a 1:4000.
    MERS-CoV nucleocapsid protein
    suggested: None
    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    Virus titrations were performed by end-point titration in VeroE6 cells inoculated with tenfold serial dilutions of virus.
    VeroE6
    suggested: JCRB Cat# JCRB1819, RRID:CVCL_YQ49)
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The GenBank MERS-CoV sequences were aligned with the consensus sequences for MERS-CoV isolates used in this study using the MAFFT v.
    MAFFT
    suggested: (MAFFT, RRID:SCR_011811)
    The phylogenetic tree was inferred using the maximum likelihood method under the GTR + gamma model of nucleotide substitution with 1000 bootstrap replicates implemented with PhyML version 3.3.20190321.
    PhyML
    suggested: (PhyML, RRID:SCR_014629)
    The tissues were processed for immunohistochemistry using the Discovery ULTRA automated IHC/ISH staining instrument (Ventana Medical Systems) with a Discovery ChromoMap DAB (Ventana Medical Systems) kit, scanned with the Aperio ScanScope AT2 (Aperio Technologies, Inc.) and the entire section analyzed with the ImageScope Positive Pixel Count algorithm (version 9.1).
    ImageScope
    suggested: (ImageScope, RRID:SCR_014311)
    Statistical analyses: All analyses were done using GraphPad Prism version 7.05 for Windows.
    GraphPad Prism
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)

    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 found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).

    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.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • 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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.02.11.429193v1 on bioRxiv