Diet-induced obesity affects influenza disease severity and transmission dynamics in ferrets

• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk9137
• Publication Date: 2024-05-10T17:58:45Z
• Authors: Victoria Meliopoulos; Rebekah Honce; Brandi Livingston; Virginia Hargest; Pamela Freiden; Lauren Lazure; Pamela H. Brigleb; Erik Karlsson; Heather Sheppard; E. Kaity Allen; David Boyd; Paul G. Thomas; Stacey Schultz-Ch...
• Keywords: 2. Zero hunger; Animal; Ferrets; 610; Severity of Illness Index; Influenza; 3. Good health; Diet; Virus Shedding; Disease Models, Animal; Orthomyxoviridae Infections; Disease Models; Influenza, Human; Animals; Humans; Biomedicine and Life Sciences; Obesity; Lung; Human

Obesity, and the associated metabolic syndrome, is a risk factor for increased disease severity with a variety of infectious agents, including influenza virus. Yet, the mechanisms are only partially understood. As the number of people, particularly children, living with obesity continues to rise, it is critical to understand the role of host status on disease pathogenesis. In these studies, we use a diet-induced obese ferret model and tools to demonstrate that, like humans, obesity resulted in notable changes to the lung microenvironment, leading to increased clinical disease and viral spread to the lower respiratory tract. The decreased antiviral responses also resulted in obese animals shedding higher infectious virus for a longer period, making them more likely to transmit to contacts. These data suggest that the obese ferret model may be crucial to understanding obesity’s impact on influenza disease severity and community transmission and a key tool for therapeutic and intervention development for this high-risk population.