Getting to the “heart” of the matter with SARS-CoV-2 in cats
We are almost at the one-year anniversary of the Bronx Zoo SARS-CoV-2 tiger exposure, when the Cornell Animal Health Diagnostic Center swung into gear (with the Whittaker lab making their own small contribution) and for the first time highlighted the risk of COVID-19 in animals. Over the past twelve months, the Whittaker lab has been hard at work, and dedicated to advancing our scientific knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 infection—in humans, but also with respect to SARS-CoV-2 in cats that may be harboring their own, feline, coronaviruses (FCoVs). We consider that there are many overlaps, both clinically and molecularly between SARS-CoV-2 and FCoV.
In the intervening time, the story with SARS-CoV-2 in cats has for the most part been relatively quiet; our own contribution has a been a year-long serological study of domestic cats in New York City apartments, where we have found a surprisingly high level of SARS-CoV-2 infection without obvious clinical signs (watch this space for a publication soon). In the meantime, the “prototype” SARS-CoV-2 (Wuhan-1) has developed to become a virus with many, many variants; currently tracked at PANGO. As we blogged recently, B.1.1.7 has risen to dominate as the circulating virus in many locations and finding this in cats is entirely predictable (in our opinion) and in itself not concerning. We have been actively tracking B.1.1.7 in the lab with regard to its S1/S2 cleavage site, and our conclusion is that it replicates less well (again, watch this space), and may in fact be a starting point for the adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 to a more benign “common-cold” coronavirus. What is much more concerning is the association of SARS-CoV-2 infections (of any variant) in cats and the apparent link to significant cardiac disease, and how this may connect to hypertrophic myocarditis (HCM) as a predisposing factor for a more severe outcome of a coronavirus infection in cats. We are acutely aware of the need to follow this up, and we will be hard at work helping to try and figure this out in the months ahead.
PANGO link to https://cov-lineages.org/index.html
UK SARS-CoV-2 variant found in cats
Coronaviruses as a cause of vascular disease — a comparative medicine approach