Engineering a Reliable and Convenient SARS-CoV-2 Replicon System for Analysis of Viral RNA Synthesis and Screening of Antiviral Inhibitors
Yuewen Luo, Fei Yu, Mo Zhou, Yang Liu, Baijin Xia, Xiantao Zhang, Jun Liu, Junsong Zhang, Yingying Du, Rong Li, Liyang Wu, Xu Zhang, Ting Pan, Deyin Guo, Tao Peng, Hui Zhang
Abstract
COVID-19 has caused a severe global pandemic. Until now, there has been no simple and reliable system available in a lower-biosafety-grade laboratory for SARS-CoV-2 virologic research and inhibitor screening. We reported a replicon system which consists of four ordinary plasmids expressing the required segments of SARS-CoV-2. Using the replicon system, we developed three application scenarios: (i) to identify the effects of viral proteins on virus replication, (ii) to identify the effects of mutations on viral replication during viral epidemics, and (iii) to perform high-throughput screening of antiviral drugs. Collectively, this replicon system would be useful for virologists to study SARS-CoV-2 virology, for epidemiologists to monitor virus mutations, and for industry to develop antiviral drugs.