Age- and sex-associated differences in Lujo hemorrhagic fever pathogenesis in strain 13/N guinea pigs
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Lujo virus (LUJV) is a highly pathogenic zoonotic arenavirus first identified during a 2008 viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) outbreak in Southern Africa, exhibiting an 80% case fatality rate. Despite its public health significance, LUJV remains poorly understood, with no approved treatments, vaccines, or known reservoir. Existing small animal models have shown limited disease recapitulation, with strain 13/N guinea pigs emerging as a promising model for LUJV pathogenesis. In this study, we evaluate the influence of age and sex on LUJV disease progression in strain 13/N guinea pigs. We show that young females exhibit markedly improved survival, while all young males, as well as juvenile and adult animals of both sexes, succumbed to infection. Despite similar high titers of LUJV detected in the lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, and serum of infected animals, survival outcomes strongly correlated with immune responses rather than viral burden. Adult animals and young males developed more severe clinical signs, heightened hematological and biochemical abnormalities, and pronounced cytokine storms, particularly elevated IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6, and CXCL10 levels. In contrast, young females displayed lower inflammatory cytokine profiles, and attenuated clinical disease. These findings underscore that LUJV pathogenesis in guinea pigs is influenced by host immune responses rather than viral replication alone. Our results provide critical insight into age- and sex-dependent mechanisms of LUJV disease and support the utility of the strain 13/N guinea pig model for future medical countermeasures development.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".