Neutralizing antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 ancestral strain and
Omicron BA.1 subvariant in dogs and cats in Mexico
Abstract
The virus SARS-CoV-2 originated in Wuhan, China, in 2019 and has since
spread worldwide, infecting humans and animals. Several reports have
described the seroprevalence of antibodies in dogs and cats, but there
are no reports from Mexico. This study aimed to evaluate the
seroprevalence of neutralizing antibodies against the ancestral strain
and Omicron BA.1 subvariant in dogs and cats in Mexico. A total of 1111
samples from dogs (n=1052) and cats (n=59) were collected in different
regions of Mexico, and the presence of neutralizing antibodies (nAbs)
was evaluated by a plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT90) and
microneutralization (MN). The results showed that 15.25% (9 of 59) of
cats and 2.85% (30 of 1052) of dogs presented nAbs against the
ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2. However, the analysis of nAbs against
Omicron BA.1 in cats showed the same percentage of positive animals but
a reduction in the titer. In the case of dogs, 2.09% (22 of 1052)
showed nAbs against Omicron BA.1. These results agree with previous
reports showing that antibodies are more frequent in cats than in dogs
and that these antibodies have a lower capacity to neutralize Omicron
BA.1