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Animal Models

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Methods

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SARS-CoV-2 Infects Neurons and Induces Neuroinflammation in a Non-Human Primate Model of COVID-19

Beckman et al., Cell Reports. 2022.

https://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111573

SARS-CoV-2 causes brain fog and other neurological complications in some patients. It has been unclear whether SARS-CoV-2 infects the brain directly or whether central nervous system sequelae result from systemic inflammatory responses triggered in the periphery. Using a rhesus macaque model, researchers detected SARS-CoV-2 in the olfactory cortex and interconnected regions 7 days after infection, demonstrating that the virus enters the brain through the olfactory nerve. Neuroinflammation and neuronal damage were more severe in elderly monkeys with type 2 diabetes. The researchers found that in aged monkeys, SARS-CoV-2 traveled farther along nerve pathways to regions associated with Alzheimer's disease. Supported by ORIP (P51OD011107) and NIA.

Promoting Validation and Cross-Phylogenetic Integration in Model Organism Research

Cheng et al., Disease Models & Mechanisms. 2022.

https://www.doi.org/10.1242/dmm.049600

Model organisms are essential for biomedical research and therapeutic development, but translation of such research to the clinic is low. The authors summarized discussions from an NIH virtual workshop series, titled “Validation of Animal Models and Tools for Biomedical Research,” held from 2020 to 2021. They described challenges and opportunities for developing and integrating tools and resources and provided suggestions for improving the rigor, validation, reproducibility, and translatability of model organism research. Supported by ORIP (R01OD011116, R24OD031447, R03OD030597, R24OD018559, R24OD017870, R24OD026591, R24OD022005, U42OD026645, U42OD012210, U54OD030165, UM1OD023221, P51OD011107), NIAMS, NIDDK, NIGMS, NHGRI, and NINDS.

AAV5 Delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 Supports Effective Genome Editing in Mouse Lung Airway

Liang et al., Molecular Therapy. 2022.

https://www.cell.com/molecular-therapy-family/molecular-therapy/fulltext/S1525-0016(21)00530-X

Genome editing in the lung has the potential to provide long-term expression of therapeutic protein to treat lung genetic diseases. The authors illustrated that AAV5 can efficiently deliver CRISPR-Cas9 to mouse lung airways and was the first to achieve ∼20% editing efficiency in those airways. Results were confirmed through independent experiments at two different institutes. This highly efficient dual AAV platform will facilitate the study of genome editing in the lung and other tissue types. Supported by ORIP (U42OD026645).