【Animal Modeling】-Establishment and evaluation of a mouse model of human coronavirus 229E cold-damp epidemic virus attacking the lung syndrome and disease-syndrome combination

  Objective To establish a mouse model of human coronavirus 229E cold-damp epidemic virus attacking the lung syndrome combined with disease and syndrome, to observe the consistency of TCM syndromes, disease manifestations and typical clinical manifestations of viral pneumonia, and to verify the reliability of the model in drug efficacy evaluation .

  Methods The BALB/c young mice were placed in an artificial climate box with a cold and humid environment, and a mouse model was established by superimposing the method of intranasal infection with hCoV-229E. mice were used as controls. Evaluate the appearance and behavior characteristics related to TCM syndromes of model mice, as well as lung index, viral load in lung tissue and presence of live virus, lung histopathology and imaging changes, serum gastrointestinal hormone levels, and percentage of lymphocytes and the changes of inflammatory cytokine levels in lung tissue, and using the compound traditional Chinese medicine "Cold Damp Epidemic Prescription", which can treat the syndrome of cold and damp disease attacking the lung, to evaluate the reliability of the model in the evaluation of drug efficacy.

  Results Compared with normal mice, model mice exhibited appearance and behavior consistent with cold-damp syndrome and viral pneumonia, including decreased food and water intake, decreased activity, loose stools, and greasy hair (P<0.05). or P<0.01), as well as pulmonary viral nucleic acid positive, increased lung index (P<0.01), significantly increased lung and bronchial histopathological scores (P<0.05 or P<0.01), increased motilin level (P<0.01) ), decreased gastrin level (P<0.01), decreased peripheral blood lymphocyte percentage (P<0.01), and increased inflammatory cytokine levels (P<0.01). After the compound traditional Chinese medicine was given, each index was relieved to different degrees (P<0.05 or P<0.01).

  Conclusions The hCoV-229E disease-syndrome combination mouse model established in this study is consistent with clinical disease manifestations, which provides a potential method for drug screening for the treatment of pneumonia with this syndrome.