Journal article
Prophylactic intranasal administration of a TLR2/6 agonist reduces upper respiratory tract viral shedding in a SARS-CoV-2 challenge ferret model
PC Proud, D Tsitoura, RJ Watson, BY Chua, MJ Aram, KR Bewley, BE Cavell, R Cobb, S Dowall, SA Fotheringham, CMK Ho, V Lucas, D Ngabo, E Rayner, KA Ryan, GS Slack, S Thomas, NI Wand, P Yeates, C Demaison Show all
Ebiomedicine | ELSEVIER | Published : 2021
Abstract
Background: The novel human coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is a major ongoing global threat with huge economic burden. Like all respiratory viruses, SARS-CoV-2 initiates infection in the upper respiratory tract (URT). Infected individuals are often asymptomatic, yet highly infectious and readily transmit virus. A therapy that restricts initial replication in the URT has the potential to prevent progression of severe lower respiratory tract disease as well as limiting person-to-person transmission. Methods: SARS-CoV-2 Victoria/01/2020 was passaged in Vero/hSLAM cells and virus titre determined by plaque assay. Challenge virus was delivered by intranasal instillation to female ferrets at 5.0 × 106 pfu..
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Funding Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the Biological Investigations Group at the National Infection Service, PHE, Porton Down, United Kingdom. Special thanks to Thomas Hender, Carrie Turner, Stephen Findlay-Wilson and Neil McLeod for assisting in pro-viding RT-qPCR data for this work. The authors would like to express their gratitude to Jade Gouriet, Phillip Brown, Karen Gooch and Jemma Paterson for their help in processing of Containment Level 3 in vivo samples. The authors would like to thank Laura Hunter, Chel-sea L. Kennard and Francisco J. Salguero for their contribution to the processing and critical review of pathology tissues. The authors are grateful to Michael G. Catton and Julian Druce from Victorian Infec-tious Disease Reference Laboratory for the generous donation of the SARS-CoV-2 strain. The authors gratefully acknowledge Ena Respiratory for funding this work.