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Volume 27, Number 12—December 2021
Research Letter

Postmortem Stability of SARS-CoV-2 in Mouse Lung Tissue

Sophie A. Valkenburg, Samuel M.S. Cheng, Asmaa Hachim, Malik Peiris, and John NichollsComments to Author 
Author affiliation: The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Main Article

Table

Postmortem viral loads in K18-hACE2 mice lung tissue after 5 days of infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2*

Day N gene copies, log10 % Reduction of N gene copies† TCID50/mL, log10 % Reduction of TCID50/mL† Lung
inflammation score‡
SARS-CoV-2 N protein
antigen score§
Positive for SARS N protein¶
0 7.28 + 0.53 NA 5.48 + 0.44 NA 9.33 + 1.53 3.66 + 1.15 3 (100.0)
1 6.39 + 1.59 −48.85 + 48.14 4.54 + 1.48 −50.88 + 58.82 7 + 2 2.66 + 2.31 2 (66.6)
5# 7.05 + 0.36 −48.21 + 45.43 4.00 + 0.41 −96.48 + 3.54 5.33 + 4.61 4 + 1.4 2 (100.0)
14 5.53 + 1.43 −82.95 + 29.13 2.78 + 1.21 −99.35 + 0.86 10.33 + 1.53 1.66 + 2.88 1 (33.3)

*Values are mean +SD, except as indicated. NA, not applicable; TCID50, 50% tissue culture infectious dose. †Compared with day 0. ‡Scale of 0–16, in which 16 represents most severe inflammation. §Scale of 0–5, in which 5 represents highest amount of antigen. ¶Values are no. (%). #Days 0,1, and 14 values reflect 3 mice. Day 5 values reflect 2 mice for histology and 3 mice for TCID50 and reverse transcription PCR.

Main Article

Page created: September 21, 2021
Page updated: November 19, 2021
Page reviewed: November 19, 2021
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