Porcine lung tissue slices: a culture model for PRCV infection and innate immune response investigations

Shuxian Li; Yabin Lu; Shanshan Yang; Caiying Wang; Jing Yang; Xin Huang; Guohui Chen; Yongheng Shao; Maolin Li; Haoyuan Yu; Yuguang Fu; Guangliang Liu

doi:10.1186/s13568-024-01717-0

Porcine lung tissue slices: a culture model for PRCV infection and innate immune response investigations

AMB Express. 2024 May 16;14(1):57. doi: 10.1186/s13568-024-01717-0.

Authors

Shuxian Li^{1

2}, Yabin Lu^{1

2}, Shanshan Yang¹, Caiying Wang¹, Jing Yang¹, Xin Huang¹, Guohui Chen¹, Yongheng Shao¹, Maolin Li¹, Haoyuan Yu¹, Yuguang Fu³, Guangliang Liu^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Etiological Biology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 1 XuJiaPing, YanChangBu, ChengGuan District, 730046, Lanzhou, Gansu, China.
² College of Veterinary Medicine, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Etiological Biology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 1 XuJiaPing, YanChangBu, ChengGuan District, 730046, Lanzhou, Gansu, China. fuyuguang@caas.cn.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Etiological Biology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 1 XuJiaPing, YanChangBu, ChengGuan District, 730046, Lanzhou, Gansu, China. LiuGuangliang01@caas.cn.
⁵ College of Veterinary Medicine, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, China. LiuGuangliang01@caas.cn.

Abstract

Respiratory coronaviruses (RCoVs) significantly threaten human health, necessitating the development of an ex vivo respiratory culture system for investigating RCoVs infection. Here, we successfully generated a porcine precision-cut lung slices (PCLSs) culture system, containing all resident lung cell types in their natural arrangement. Next, this culture system was inoculated with a porcine respiratory coronavirus (PRCV), exhibiting clinical features akin to humans who were infected by SARS-CoV-2. The results demonstrated that PRCV efficiently infected and replicated within PCLSs, targeting ciliated cells in the bronchioles, terminal bronchioles, respiratory bronchioles, and pulmonary alveoli. Additionally, through RNA-Seq analysis of the innate immune response in PCLSs following PRCV infection, expression levels of interferons, inflammatory cytokines and IFN stimulated genes were significantly upregulated. This ex vivo model may not only offer new insights into PRCV infection in the porcine respiratory tract but also serve as a valuable tool for studying human respiratory CoVs infection.

Keywords: Innate immune response; Porcine respiratory coronavirus; Precision-cut lung slices.

Abstract

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