Coxsackievirus B3 Infection Model in Mice

This study was approved by the Institutional Animal Research Committee of Tongji Medical College. All animal experimental protocols complied with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals published by the National Institutes of Health. Male A/J (~6-week-old) mice were obtained from GemPharmatech (Nanjing, China). Male C57BL/6 (~6-week-old) mice, male BALB/c (~6-week-old) mice, and male C3H mice were purchased from Beijing Vital River Laboratory Animal Technology (Beijing, China). All four mice strains were randomly assigned to two groups: control (n = 10) and CVB3-treated (n = 15) groups. A/J mice and BALB/c mice were intraperitoneally injected with 10⁴ PFU CVB3, while C57BL/6 and C3H mice were intraperitoneally injected with 10⁵ PFU CVB3, as described previously (Huber et al., 2001 (link); Althof et al., 2018 (link)). Phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) was used as the control. All animals were anesthetized with intraperitoneal injections of a mixture of xylazine (5 mg/kg) and ketamine (80 mg/kg). Echocardiography was performed on day 7 after virus injection, and the mice were sacrificed. Subsequently, the organs were collected and frozen in liquid nitrogen, followed by storage at −80°C.