Syrian Hamsters as a Small Animal Model for Emerging Infectious Diseases: Advances in Immunologic Methods

Abstract

The use of small animal models for the study of infectious disease is critical for understanding disease progression and for developing prophylactic and therapeutic treatment options. For many diseases, Syrian golden hamsters have emerged as an ideal animal model due to their low cost, small size, ease of handling, and ability to accurately reflect disease progression in humans. Despite the increasing use and popularity of hamsters, there remains a lack of available reagents for studying hamster immune responses. Without suitable reagents for assessing immune responses, researchers are left to examine clinical signs and disease pathology. This becomes an issue for the development of vaccine and treatment options where characterizing the type of immune response generated is critical for understanding protection from disease. Despite the relative lack of reagents for use in hamsters, significant advances have been made recently with several hamster specific immunologic methods being developed. Here we discuss the progress of this development, with focus on classical methods used as well as more recent molecular methods. We outline what methods are currently available for use in hamsters and what is readily used as well as what limitations still exist and future perspectives of reagent and assay development for hamsters. This will provide valuable information to researchers who are deciding whether to use hamsters as an animal model.

Pathogenesis and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus in golden Syrian hamsters

“…Our results indicate that the golden Syrian hamster is a suitable experimental animal model for SARS-CoV-2 virus, as there is efficient viral replication in the upper and lower respiratory epithelial cells, efficient transmission from inoculated donors to co-housed naïve contacts, apparent clinical signs with greater than 10% weight loss in inoculated and naturally-infected hamsters. Hamsters are easy to handle with available reagents that can support immunological studies for vaccine development [25][26][27] .…”

Pathogenesis and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in golden hamsters

“…Our findings are consistent with a recent report 27 while the current study was under peer review. Hamsters are easy to handle and there are reagents to support immunological studies for vaccine development [28][29][30] . The results also highlighted similarity and differences between the SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 in the hamster model.…”

Animal Models Reflecting Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Related Respiratory Disorders: Translating Pre-Clinical Data into Clinical Relevance

“…Hamsters are the fifth most used laboratory animal (behind mice, rats, rabbits, and guinea pigs [23,160]), and are more commonly used for vaccine production and therapeutic studies [256][257][258]. Hamsters produce significantly more nitric oxide than other rodents following lung injury [259] and have been used in several studies investigating both CS exposure [260][261][262][263] and diesel smoke exposure [264,265].…”