Marburg virus (MARV), a close relative of Ebola virus, is the causative agent of a severe human disease known as Marburg hemorrhagic fever (MHF). No licensed vaccine or therapeutic exists to treat MHF, and MARV is therefore classified as a Tier 1 select agent and a category A bioterrorism agent. In order to develop countermeasures against this severe disease, animal models that accurately recapitulate human disease are required. Here we describe the development of a novel, uniformly lethal Syrian golden hamster model of MHF using a hamster-adapted MARV variant Angola. Remarkably, this model displayed almost all of the clinical features of MHF seen in humans and non-human primates, including coagulation abnormalities, hemorrhagic manifestations, petechial rash, and a severely dysregulated immune response. This MHF hamster model represents a powerful tool for further dissecting MARV pathogenesis and accelerating the development of effective medical countermeasures against human MHF.
CITATION STYLE
Marzi, A., Banadyga, L., Haddock, E., Thomas, T., Shen, K., Horne, E. J., … Ebihara, H. (2016). A hamster model for Marburg virus infection accurately recapitulates Marburg hemorrhagic fever. Scientific Reports, 6. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep39214
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