SARS-CoV-2 Hamster Infection Model

The hamster infection model of SARS-CoV-2 has been described before (Abdelnabi et al., 2022 (link)). Female Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus, Janvier Laboratories) were housed as pairs in individually ventilated isolator cages (IsoCage N Bio-containment System, Tecniplast) at 21°C, 55% humidity and 12:12 days/night cycles. Housing conditions and experimental procedures were approved by the ethics committee of animal experimentation of KU Leuven (license P065-2020). For infection, female hamsters of 6–8 weeks old were first anesthetized with ketamine/xylazine/atropine and inoculated intranasally with 50 µL containing 1 × 10⁴ TCID₅₀ SARS-CoV-2 beta variant (day 0). After 4 days of infection, animals were euthanized for collection of the lungs and further analysis by intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of 500 μL Dolethal (200 mg/ml sodium pentobarbital).