Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 variants have emerged throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a need to risk-assess newly emerged variants in near 'real-time' to estimate their potential threat to public health. The recently emerged Omicron sub-variant BA.2.86 raised concerns as it carries a high number of mutations compared to its predecessors. Here, we assessed the virulence of BA.2.86 in hamsters. We compared the pathogenesis of BA.2.86 and BA.2.75, as the latter is one of the most virulent Omicron sub-variants in this animal model. Using digital pathology pipelines, we quantified the extent of pulmonary lesions measuring T cell and macrophage infiltrates, in addition to alveolar epithelial hyperplasia. We also assessed body weight loss, clinical symptoms, virus load in oropharyngeal swabs, and virus replication in the respiratory tract. Our data show that BA.2.86 displays an attenuated phenotype in hamsters, suggesting that it poses no greater risk to public health than its parental Omicron sub-variants.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

* https://covid-atlas.cvr.gla.ac.uk/

Details

Title
The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron sub-variant BA.2.86 is attenuated in hamsters
Author
Herder, Vanessa; Diogo Correa Mendonca; Upfold, Nicole; Furnon, Wilhelm; Kerr, Karen; Ilia, Georgios; Allan, Jay; Sigal, Alex; Patel, Arvind H; Palmarini, Massimo
University/institution
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
Section
New Results
Publication year
2023
Publication date
Nov 12, 2023
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
ISSN
2692-8205
Source type
Working Paper
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2889106679
Copyright
© 2023. This article is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (“the License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.