Abstract
Respiratory coronaviruses (RCoVs) significantly threaten human health, necessitating the development of an ex vivo respiratory culture system for investigating RCoVs infection. Here, we successfully generated a porcine precision-cut lung slices (PCLSs) culture system, containing all resident lung cell types in their natural arrangement. Next, this culture system was inoculated with a porcine respiratory coronavirus (PRCV), exhibiting clinical features akin to humans who were infected by SARS-CoV-2. The results demonstrated that PRCV efficiently infected and replicated within PCLSs, targeting ciliated cells in the bronchioles, terminal bronchioles, respiratory bronchioles, and pulmonary alveoli. Additionally, through RNA-Seq analysis of the innate immune response in PCLSs following PRCV infection, expression levels of interferons, inflammatory cytokines and IFN stimulated genes were significantly upregulated. This ex vivo model may not only offer new insights into PRCV infection in the porcine respiratory tract but also serve as a valuable tool for studying human respiratory CoVs infection.