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Golden Syrian hamster as a model to study cardiovascular complications associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Zaigham Abbas RizviRajdeep DalalSrikanth SadhuAkshay BinaykeJyotsna DandotiyaYashwant KumarTripti ShrivastavaSonu Kumar GuptaSuruchi AggarwalManas Ranjan TripathyDeepak Kumar RathoreAmit Kumar YadavGuruprasad R MedigeshiAmit Kumar PandeySweety SamalShailendra AsthanaAmit Awasthi
Published in: eLife (2022)
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in the Golden Syrian hamster causes lung pathology that resembles human coronavirus disease (COVID-19). However, extrapulmonary pathologies associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and post-COVID sequelae remain to be understood. Here, we show, using a hamster model, that the early phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection leads to an acute inflammatory response and lung pathologies, while the late phase of infection causes cardiovascular complications (CVCs) characterized by ventricular wall thickening associated with increased ventricular mass/body mass ratio and interstitial coronary fibrosis. Molecular profiling further substantiated our findings of CVC as SARS-CoV-2-infected hamsters showed elevated levels of serum cardiac troponin I, cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, and long-chain fatty acid triglycerides. Serum metabolomics profiling of SARS-CoV-2-infected hamsters identified N-acetylneuraminate, a functional metabolite found to be associated with CVC, as a metabolic marker was found to be common between SARS-CoV-2-infected hamsters and COVID-19 patients. Together, we propose hamsters as a suitable animal model to study post-COVID sequelae associated with CVC, which could be extended to therapeutic interventions.
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