Supporting data for “The pathological damage in testicular tissue of Syrian golden hamster associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection”

The role of SARS-CoV-2 in pathogenesis of male testicular damage remained largely unknown and our study aimed to explore more about how testes interacted with SARS-CoV-2 in hamster model. In this study, we discovered that the infection of SARS-CoV-2 BA.5 variant would cause chronic testicular degeneration changes which included the decreasing of testicular weight, size and abnormal serum sex hormone as well as degeneration and apoptosis in seminiferous tubules of Syrian golden hamsters. Furthermore, testicular tissue would not support productive SARS-CoV-2 infection. Interestingly, immune complex deposition could be found in the testes of SARS-CoV-2 infection hamsters which indicated autoimmune might play a critical role on the testicular damage.