The SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant exhibits comparable fitness to the D614G strain in a Syrian hamster model

Abstract

Late 2020, SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant emerged in United Kingdom and gradually replaced G614 strains initially involved in the global spread of the pandemic. In this study, we use a Syrian hamster model to compare a clinical strain of Alpha variant with an ancestral G614 strain. The Alpha variant succeed to infect animals and to induce a pathology that mimics COVID-19. However, both strains replicate to almost the same level and induced a comparable disease and immune response. A slight fitness advantage is noted for the G614 strain during competition and transmission experiments. These data do not corroborate the epidemiological situation observed during the first half of 2021 in humans nor reports that showed a more rapid replication of Alpha variant in human reconstituted bronchial epithelium. This study highlights the need to combine data from different laboratories using various animal models to decipher the biological properties of newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants.

The SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant exhibits similar transmission dynamics to an ancestral D614G variant in a Syrian hamster model, suggesting the limitations of using the hamster as the sole model to assess differences between SARS-CoV-2 strains.