COVID-19 preclinical models: human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 transgenic mice

Lutz, Cathleen; Maher, Leigh; Lee, Charles; Kang, Wonyoung

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a declared pandemic that is spreading all over the world at a dreadfully fast rate. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the pathogen of COVID-19, infects the human body using angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) as a receptor identical to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) pandemic that occurred in 2002–2003. SARS-CoV-2 has a higher binding affinity to human ACE2 than to that of other species. Animal models that mimic the human disease are highly essential to develop therapeutics and vaccines against COVID-19. Here, we review transgenic mice that express human ACE2 in the airway and other epithelia and have shown to develop a rapidly lethal infection after intranasal inoculation with SARS-CoV, the pathogen of SARS. This literature review aims to present the importance of utilizing the human ACE2 transgenic mouse model to better understand the pathogenesis of COVID-19 and develop both therapeutics and vaccines.