Extended Data Fig. 5: Transmission of bovine H5N1 virus from lactating female mice to adult contacts.
From: Pathogenicity and transmissibility of bovine H5N1 influenza virus
Lactating female BALB/cJ mice (10—12 weeks old) were deeply anaesthetized, intranasally inoculated with 102 PFU of A/dairy cattle/New Mexico/A240920343-93/2024 (H5N1; ‘Cow-H5N1’), and then cohoused with adult female BALB/cJ mice (n = 3 biologically independent animals per lactating female). At day 4 (n = 1 biologically independent lactating female) (A), day 7 (n = 4 biologically independent lactating females) (B), or day 9 (n = 4 biologically independent lactating females) (C) post-infection, lactating females and adult contacts were euthanised and tissues were collected for plaque assays in MDCK cells. Milk was collected from 3 of 4 lactating females on day 7 post-infection and all four lactating females on day 9 post-infection and tested by plaque assays in MDCK cells. In the figure, each box represents one cage with a lactating female and the associated adult contact animals. Animals for which Cow-H5N1 was detected in at least one tissue are coloured blue. At the lower left corner of each box, the status of each tissue or milk sample collected from the lactating females is indicated. Gray text indicates that no virus was detected, whereas red text indicates that virus was detected. Tissue abbreviations are given at the lower left of the figure. Created with BioRender.com.
