A Hamster Model for the Evaluation of Marburg Virus Countermeasures

Abstract

Wild-type filoviruses including Marburg virus (MARV) cause disease in humans, nonhuman primates, and some immunodeficient mouse strains but generally not in immunocompetent rodents and ferrets. However, disease in immunocompetent rodents can be achieved by serial passaging of the virus as demonstrated by the mouse-, hamster-, and guinea pig-adapted strains of MARV, which often cause lethal disease in the respective rodent species. These disease models present valuable first screening models for medical countermeasure evaluation against MARV, including monoclonal antibody therapies and vaccines. The MARV hamster disease model is of particular interest since the infected hamsters display almost all of the clinical signs of Marburg virus disease observed in nonhuman primates and humans, including petechial rash, hemorrhages, coagulation disorder, and dysregulated immune responses. This chapter describes a protocol using the hamster-adapted MARV in Syrian Golden hamsters for studies investigating viral pathogenesis or evaluating the efficacy of medical countermeasures.

Keywords: Hamster-adaptation; Pathogenesis; Treatments; Vaccines; MARV.