Fig. 5: LNP-CasRx-pre-gCtsl reduces chemokine/cytokine levels and lung pathogenesis in SARS-CoV-2-infected K18-hACE2 mice.
From: Cas13d knockdown of lung protease Ctsl prevents and treats SARS-CoV-2 infection
a, Schematic illustration of the experimental design, using the same treatment as in Fig. 3. Each group consists of two females and two males except for the eLNPs group (one female and two males). Lungs were collected for analysis at 4 DPI. The DPBS, eLNPs and LNP-CasRx-pre-gControl groups were pooled and referred to as control. Nonvirus, two females and two males. b, Transcript levels of Cxcl10 and Tnf in lung. All transcript levels are normalized to Gapdh. The bar represents the average of the group, while each circle represents an individual animal. P values were calculated by one-tailed Mann–Whitney U-test, grand mean. **P < 0.01. c, Representative photomicrographs of H&E-stained lung sections demonstrate that the perivascular, interstitial and alveolar inflammatory lesions in virus-infected mice were reduced by LNP-CasRx-pre-gCtsl treatment. One section per mouse was subjected to histological evaluation and only one image from each group was shown. Annotations: BV, blood vessel; thin arrow, perivascular or interstitial inflammatory infiltrates; asterisk, intra-alveolar edema. Scale bars, 200 μm (left) and 50 μm (right).
