The Jackson Laboratory, in Bar Harbor, Maine, is a mouse-breeding facility that has become vitally important for research efforts on the coronavirus (COVID-19). The laboratory supplies transgenic mice to other labs and researchers.
The laboratory has received orders for more than 3,000 mice from more than 50 labs. These transgenic mice produce a human version of the ACE2 protein, which is what SARS-CoV-2 uses to enter cells. Normal (non-transgenic) mice appear to be resistant to the virus. Researchers are studying animals (monkeys, mice, and ferrets) to better understand COVID-19.
No single animal holds the key. Monkeys and mice provide insight to researchers in different ways. Ferrets, for example, are popular study animals for influenza since their lung function is similar to humans. Monkeys seem to hold the most promise, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan Institute of Virology infected rhesus monkeys with coronavirus and the monkeys only developed a mild illness with no fever. When the researchers x-rayed the monkey’s lungs, they showed signs of pneumonia that are consistent with COVID-19.
Many researchers want to use mice to study COVID-19. The mice bred at the Jackson Laboratory are humanized ACE2 (hACE2) mice and were bred to study the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003. As SARS research diminished, many labs and researchers stopped working with mice, which means that there weren’t many colonies of mice available when the COVID-19 pandemic occurred. The Jackson lab has started a new colony of mice and with many researchers on a waiting list, their work becomes increasingly vital for research in a post-COVID-19 world.