Figure 3. Identification of macrophages in the lung of SARS‐CoV‐2‐infected hamsters with and without ivermectin treatment and characterization of their transcriptomic profile related to M1/M2 polarization.

• A
  Representative histopathology photomicrographies of lungs according to the different groups: mock_saline, CoV_saline, and CoV_ivermectin. Top panels: whole lung sections. Bottom panels: high magnification. CoV_saline section exhibits important congestion (*), edema associated with few mononuclear cells (white arrowheads). Note the thickening of the alveolar walls. CoV_ivermectin section exhibits important amounts of mononuclear cells (black arrowheads) and less marked signs of congestion or edema. Hematoxylin and eosin. Scale bars = 1 mm (top panels) and 20 μm (bottom panels).
• B
  Representative immunofluorescence photomicrographies of neutrophils (Ly‐6G), monocytes/macrophages (Iba1), M2 macrophages (Arg1), and SARS‐CoV‐2 (NP) in the lung. Scale bars = 50 μm.
• C
  Quantification of Iba1⁺ cells, Arg1⁺ cells, and Iba1⁺Arg1⁺ cells in the lungs. mock_saline n = 3 (males), mock_ivermectin n = 4 (males), CoV_saline n = 9 (6 males and 3 females), and CoV_ivermectin n = 6 (4 males and 2 females).
• D
  Heatmaps showing the differentially expressed genes related to the M1/M2 polarization in comparison with mock‐infected hamsters. *indicates Benjamini–Hochberg‐adjusted P‐value < 0.05 in the comparison between saline and ivermectin within the same sex. Color gradient represents the transcription log₂ fold change comparing infected and mock‐infected. Complete analyses are listed in Dataset EV1.
• E
  Lung weight‐to‐body weight ratio in the different groups (n = 4/sex/group).

Data information: M: male hamsters and F: female hamsters. Horizontal lines indicate medians. The P value is indicated in bold when significant at a 0.05 threshold. Mann–Whitney test (C, E).

Source data are available online for this figure.