Polarized Calu-3 Cells Serve as an Intermediary Model for SARS-CoV-2 Infection.

Human nasal epithelium (HNE) organoid models of SARS-CoV-2 infection were adopted globally during the COVID-19 pandemic once it was recognized that the Vero cell line commonly used by virologists did not recapitulate human infection. However, the widespread use of HNE organoid infection models was hindered by the high cost of media and consumables, and the inherent limitation of basal cells as a scalable continuous source of cells. The human Calu-3 cell line, generated from a lung adenocarcinoma, was shown to largely recapitulate infection of the human epithelium and to preserve the SARS-CoV-2 genomic fidelity.