hACE2-rAAV

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a debilitating and dangerous human syndrome caused by coronavirus infection. Coronaviruses enter the human body by binding to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), and thus, animal models that express ACE2 are useful for the study of coronavirus-associated respiratory diseases. Traditional knock-in animal models are labor-intensive and require at least six months to build, as well as extensive resource allocations to maintain. PackGene has generated AAV-based animal models that overexpress the hACE2 protein in specific organs, making them suitable for coronavirus studies, including COVID-19-related studies.

PackGene’s model takes advantage of rAAV serotype tropisms to selectively infect specific tissues in mice for generating AAV-hACE2 animal models. AAV infected tissues show continuous and stable expression of the hACE2 protein producing in a simple and time-saving method for new coronavirus-related drug development and research.

Comparison between AAV-hACE2 animal modeling and traditional animal modeling: