Models and Insights into Long COVID

Acute COVID19 infection may lead to acute respiratory disease syndrome and death and survivors may recover completely or progress to a variety of chronic disease states termed "Long COVID".  The genetic and molecular mechanisms governing differential outcomes remains unclear. The most prominent forms of long COVID include chronic inflammatory diseases of the lung and brain, which can present as breathing difficulties or cognitive disorders.  The presentation describes models of chronic lung inflammatory and brain phenotypes following infection of wildtype and genetic reference populations. Molecular and inflammatory phenotypes were used to provide insights into the molecular and genetic basis of disease.  Our data provide a series of animal models to study the progression from acute to chronic disease and support a model where dysregulated epithelial-immune cell interaction networks that promote chronic inflammatory and reparative defects in the lung.