Paternal SARS-CoV-2 infection impacts on female offspring hippocampus transcriptome
Using an established mouse-adapted SARS-CoV-2 (P21) preclinical model, we infected adult male mice with the P21 isolate, or performed a mock control infection with PBS, and bred them with naive female mice four weeks later, when males were no longer infectious. We show that male and female offspring of infected sires displayed increased anxiety-like behaviors in both the light-dark box and open-field tests. Additionally, the F1 female offspring had significant transcriptomic changes in their hippocampus, whereas the F1 males had very few changes.