Development and characterization of recombinant tick-borne encephalitis virus expressing mCherry reporter protein: a new tool for high-throughput screening of antiviral compounds, and neutralizing antibody assays.

Development and characterization of recombinant tick-borne encephalitis virus expressing mCherry reporter protein: a new tool for high-throughput screening of antiviral compounds, and neutralizing antibody assays. Antiviral Res. 2020 Nov 03;:104968 Authors: Haviernik J, Eyer L, Yoshii K, Kobayashi S, Cerny J, Nougairède A, Driouich JS, Volf J, Palus M, de Lamballerie X, Gould EA, Ruzek D Abstract The flavivirus, tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is transmitted by Ixodes spp. ticks and may cause severe and potentially lethal neurological tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in humans. Studying TBEV requires the use of secondary methodologies to detect the virus in infected cells. To overcome this problem, we rationally designed and constructed a recombinant reporter TBEV that stably expressed the mCherry reporter protein. The resulting TBEV reporter virus (named mCherry-TBEV) and wild-type parental TBEV exhibited similar growth kinetics in cultured cells; however, the mCherry-TBEV virus produced smaller plaques. The magnitude of mCherry expression correlated well with progeny virus production but remained stable over < 4 passages in cell culture. Using well-characterized antiviral compounds known to inhibit TBEV, 2'-C-methyladenosine and 2'-deoxy-2'-β-hydroxy-4'-azidocytidine (RO-9187), we demonstrated that mCherry-TBEV is suitable for high-throughput screening of antiviral drugs. Serum samples from a TBEV-vaccinated human and a TBEV...
Source: Antiviral Research - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Antiviral Res Source Type: research