{"doi":"10.1101/2022.06.29.498158","title":"Vitamin D and the ability to produce 1,25(OH) <sub>2</sub> D are critical for protection from viral infection of the lungs","abstract":"Abstract Vitamin D supplementation has been linked to improved outcomes from respiratory virus infection, and the COVID19 pandemic has renewed interest in understanding the potential role of vitamin D in protecting the lung from viral infections. Therefore, we evaluated the role of Vitamin D using animal models of pandemic H1N1 influenza and SARS-CoV-2 infection. In mice, dietary induced vitamin D deficiency resulted in lung inflammation that was present prior to infection. Vitamin D sufficient (D+) and deficient (D-) wildtype (WT) and D+ and D-Cyp27B1 (Cyp) knockout (KO, cannot produce 1,25(OH) 2 D) mice were infected with pandemic H1N1. D- WT, D+ Cyp KO, and D- Cyp KO mice all exhibited significantly reduced survival compared to D+ WT mice. Importantly, survival was not the result of reduced viral replication as influenza M gene expression in the lungs was similar for all animals. Based on these findings, additional experiments were performed using the mouse and hamster models of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. In these studies, high dose vitamin D supplementation reduced lung inflammation in mice but not hamsters. A trend to faster weight recovery was observed in 1,25(OH) 2 D treated mice that survived SARS-CoV-2 infection. There was no effect of vitamin D on SARS-CoV-2 N gene expression in the lung of either mice or hamsters. Therefore, vitamin D deficiency enhanced disease severity, while vitamin D sufficient/supplementation reduced inflammation following infections with H1N1 influenza and SARS-CoV-2.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2022,"id":298296,"datarank":0.29188652235829704,"base_score":1.9459101490553132,"endowment":1.9459101490553132,"self_citation_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9674,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":561976,"name":"Devanshi Patel","orcid":"0000-0002-5554-6890","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":252568,"name":"McKayla J. Nicol","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":698623,"name":"Cassandra J. Field","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":439728,"name":"Katherine H. Restori","orcid":"0000-0002-6375-901X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":864530,"name":"Jinpeng Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-1475-9910","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":906454,"name":"Nicole E. Froelich","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":776586,"name":"Bhuvana Katkere","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":906455,"name":"Josey A. Terwilliger","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":385656,"name":"Veronika Weaver","orcid":"0000-0002-3558-7660","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":905885,"name":"Erin Luley","orcid":"0000-0001-7619-0793","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":495119,"name":"Kathleen M. Kelly","orcid":"0000-0002-5120-6266","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249129,"name":"Girish S. Kirimanjeswara","orcid":"0000-0002-9216-1105","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":697888,"name":"Troy C. Sutton","orcid":"0000-0002-7880-4784","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":386644,"name":"Margherita T. Cantorna","orcid":null,"position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":385655,"name":"Juhi Arora","orcid":"0000-0002-2356-0559","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":50,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:31:36.269611Z","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":[]}