Figure 7.

Histopathological scores of the lung tissue sections from HAd-Spike- or HAd-Spike/C5-immunized golden Syrian hamsters following challenge with SARS-CoV-2

Six- to seven-week-old golden Syrian hamsters were mock inoculated (PBS) or inoculated i.n. once with 2 × 10⁸ PFUs/animal of HAd-ΔE1E3, HAd-Spike, or HAd-Spike/C5. 35 days post immunization, animal groups were challenged with 10⁵ TCID₅₀ of SARS-CoV-2 (B.1.1.28). Animals were euthanized 3, 5, 7, and 14 days post challenge, and the lung lobe samples were collected and processed for histopathology. The tissue sections were scored by a board-certified veterinary pathologist unaware of the animal groups. An in-house-developed scoring system (Table 1) was used to score the lung lesions. ns, p > 0.05; ∗p ≤ 0.05; ∗∗p ≤ 0.01; ∗∗∗p ≤ 0.001.