Premature aging effects on COVID-19 pathogenesis: new insights from mouse models

Aging is identified as a significant risk factor for severe coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), often resulting in profound lung damage and mortality. Yet, the biological relationship between aging, aging-related comorbidities, and COVID-19 remains incompletely understood. This study aimed to elucidate the age-related COVID19 pathogenesis using a Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) mouse model with humanized ACE2 receptors. Pathological features were compared between young, aged, and HGPS hACE2 mice following SAR-CoV-2 challenge. We demonstrated that young mice display robust interferon response and antiviral activity, whereas this response is attenuated in aged mice. Viral infection in aged mice results in severe respiratory tract bleeding, likely contributing a higher mortality rate. In contrast, HGPS hACE2 mice exhibit milder disease manifestations characterized by minor immune cell infiltration and dysregulation of multiple metabolic processes. Comprehensive transcriptome analysis revealed both shared and unique gene expression dynamics among different mouse groups. Collectively, our studies evaluated the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on progeroid syndromes using a HGPS hACE2 mouse model, which holds promise as a valuable tool for investigating COVID-19 pathogenesis in individuals with premature aging. To investigate the pathological outcomes of lungs in HGPS hACE2 mice upon SARS-CoV-2 infection, we infected young (2 month old), aged (14 month old), and HGPS (2 month old) hACE2 mice with the original strain of the coronavirus from Wuhan (WIV04) , and harvest RNA samples of lungs at 1, 3, 5, 7 day-post-infection (dpi). we then performed RNA-seq, and compared the transcriptome changes of lungs between young, old, and HGPS hACE2 mice.