ABSTRACT
This study compared disease progression of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) in three different models of golden hamsters: aged (≈60 weeks old) wild-type (WT), young (6 weeks old) WT, and adult (14-22 weeks old) hamsters expressing the human-angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) receptor. After intranasal (IN) exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 Washington isolate (WA01/2020), 2-deoxy-2-[fluorine-18]fluoro-D-glucose positron emission tomography with computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) was used to monitor disease progression in near real time and animals were euthanized at pre-determined time points to directly compare imaging findings with other disease parameters associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Consistent with histopathology, 18F-FDG-PET/CT demonstrated that aged WT hamsters exposed to 105 plaque forming units (PFU) developed more severe and protracted pneumonia than young WT hamsters exposed to the same (or lower) dose or hACE2 hamsters exposed to a uniformly lethal dose of virus. Specifically, aged WT hamsters presented with a severe interstitial pneumonia through 8 d post-exposure (PE), while pulmonary regeneration was observed in young WT hamsters at that time. hACE2 hamsters exposed to 100 or 10 PFU virus presented with a minimal to mild hemorrhagic pneumonia but succumbed to SARS-CoV-2-related meningoencephalitis by 6 d PE, suggesting that this model might allow assessment of SARS-CoV-2 infection on the central nervous system (CNS). Our group is the first to use (18F-FDG) PET/CT to differentiate respiratory disease severity ranging from mild to severe in three COVID-19 hamster models. The non-invasive, serial measure of disease progression provided by PET/CT makes it a valuable tool for animal model characterization.