A pan-coronavirus fusion inhibitor targeting the HR1 domain of human coronavirus spike

Xia, Shuai; Yan, Lei; Xu, Wei; Agrawal, Anurodh Shankar; Algaissi, Abdullah; Tseng, Chien-Te K.; Wang, Qian; Du, Lanying; Tan, Wenjie; Wilson, Ian A.; Jiang, Shibo; Yang, Bei; Lu, Lu

Pregnant Balb/c mice (18 days) purchased from the Department of Laboratory Animal Science, Fudan University were separated into four groups after delivery of their offspring. Eleven newborn mice were chosen for each group. Mice in the prevention and treatment groups were intranasally administered peptide (5 mg/kg in 2 l of PBS) 30 min before or after intranasal challenge with a viral dose of 10 2 TCID 50 (in 2 l DMEM). Mice in the viral control group and the normal control group were intranasally administered with 2 l of PBS 30 min before viral challenge or without viral challenge. Mouse survival rate and body weight variations were recorded up to 2 weeks after infection (70) . On day 5 after infection, five mice in each group were randomly selected for euthanasia to collect and assess the viral titer in mouse brain.