{"doi":"10.1101/2021.05.05.442780","title":"Prior aerosol infection with lineage A SARS-CoV-2 variant protects hamsters from disease, but not reinfection with B.1.351 SARS-CoV-2 variant","abstract":"Abstract The circulation of SARS-CoV-2 has resulted in the emergence of variants of concern (VOCs). It is currently unclear whether previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 provides protection against reinfection with VOCs. Here, we show that low dose aerosol exposure to hCoV-19/human/USA/WA-CDC-WA1/2020 (WA1, lineage A), resulted in a productive mild infection. In contrast, low dose of SARS-CoV-2 via fomites did not result in productive infection in the majority of exposed hamsters and these animals remained non-seroconverted. After recovery, hamsters were re-exposed to hCoV-19/South African/KRISP-K005325/2020 (VOC B.1.351) via an intranasal challenge. Seroconverted rechallenged animals did not lose weight and shed virus for 3 days. They had little infectious virus and no pathology in the lungs. In contrast, shedding, weight loss and extensive pulmonary pathology caused by B.1.351 replication was observed in the non-seroconverted animals. The rechallenged seroconverted animals did not transmit virus to naïve sentinels via direct contact transmission, in contrast to the non-seroconverted animals. Reinfection with B.1.351 triggered an anamnestic response that boosted not only neutralizing titers against lineage A, but also titers against B.1.351. Our results confirm that aerosol exposure is a more efficient infection route than fomite exposure. Furthermore, initial infection with SARS-CoV-2 lineage A does not prevent heterologous reinfection with B.1.351 but prevents disease and onward transmission. These data suggest that previous SARS-CoV-2 exposure induces partial protective immunity. The reinfection generated a broadly neutralizing humoral response capable of effectively neutralizing B.1.351 while maintaining its ability to neutralize the virus to which the initial response was directed against.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":216541,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9592,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":107164,"name":"Julia R. Port","orcid":"0000-0002-0489-6591","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":107166,"name":"Trenton Bushmaker","orcid":"0000-0002-2161-4808","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":237180,"name":"Robert J. Fischer","orcid":"0000-0002-1816-472X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":107172,"name":"Jonathan E. Schulz","orcid":"0000-0001-5462-5952","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":107173,"name":"Myndi G. Holbrook","orcid":"0000-0003-2376-2633","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":552057,"name":"Carl Shaia","orcid":"0000-0001-8907-8821","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":106696,"name":"Emmie de Wit","orcid":"0000-0002-9763-7758","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":107159,"name":"Neeltje van Doremalen","orcid":"0000-0003-4368-6359","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":107194,"name":"Vincent J. Munster","orcid":"0000-0002-2288-3196","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108653,"name":"Claude Kwe Yinda","orcid":"0000-0002-5195-5478","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":37,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:53:11.245932Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}