Divergent pathogenetic outcomes in BALB/c mice following Omicron subvariant infection.

"omicron s glycoprotein expressing variants designed through reverse genetics have been deposited at genbank under accension numbers or887433 & or887434 (bq 1 1) or887435 & or887436 (xbb 1) and or887437 & or887438 (xbb 1 5)."

"Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: R.S.B and S.R.L hold a patent for the SARS-CoV-2 MA10 virus, patent number (US 11,225,508 B1, “Mouse-adapted SARS-CoV-2 Viruses And Methods Of Use Thereof”)."

"We thank N.J. Thornburg at the CDC for providing us with the SARS-CoV-2 clinical isolate WA1 strain. The research was supported by research grants AI158571, AI110700 and AI167966 to RSB. The UNC Animal Histopathology & Laboratory Medicine Core is supported in part by an NCI Center Core Support Grant (P30CA016086) to the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Adrian Creanga and Barney Graham from the Vaccine Research Center (NIAID, Bethesda, MD) for a gift of Vero E6 TMPRSS2/ACE2 overexpressing cells. Authors also thank R.P. Lewandowski at Michigan State University for digitally scanning the histologic whole glass slides. John M. Powers: Project administration, Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Sarah R. Leist: Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Michael L. Mallory: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Validation. Boyd L. Yount: Methodology, Resources. Kendra L. Gully: Investigation, Resources. Mark R. Zweigart: Resources. Alexis B. Bailey: Resources. Timothy P. Sheahan: Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Jack R. Harkema: Formal analysis, Resources, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Ralph S. Baric: Funding acquisition, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing."