RESUMO
There is an urgent need for vaccines and therapeutics to prevent and treat COVID-19. Rapid SARS-CoV-2 countermeasure development is contingent on the availability of robust, scalable, and readily deployable surrogate viral assays to screen antiviral humoral responses, define correlates of immune protection, and down-select candidate antivirals. Here, we generate a highly infectious recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) bearing the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein S as its sole entry glycoprotein and show that this recombinant virus, rVSV-SARS-CoV-2 S, closely resembles SARS-CoV-2 in its entry-related properties. The neutralizing activities of a large panel of COVID-19 convalescent sera can be assessed in a high-throughput fluorescent reporter assay with rVSV-SARS-CoV-2 S, and neutralization of rVSV-SARS-CoV-2 S and authentic SARS-CoV-2 by spike-specific antibodies in these antisera is highly correlated. Our findings underscore the utility of rVSV-SARS-CoV-2 S for the development of spike-specific therapeutics and for mechanistic studies of viral entry and its inhibition.
Assuntos
Betacoronavirus/patogenicidade , Infecções por Coronavirus/virologia , Pneumonia Viral/virologia , Glicoproteína da Espícula de Coronavírus/fisiologia , Vírus da Estomatite Vesicular Indiana/fisiologia , Enzima de Conversão de Angiotensina 2 , Animais , Antivirais/farmacologia , Betacoronavirus/genética , Betacoronavirus/fisiologia , COVID-19 , Vacinas contra COVID-19 , Linhagem Celular , Chlorocebus aethiops , Infecções por Coronavirus/tratamento farmacológico , Infecções por Coronavirus/genética , Infecções por Coronavirus/imunologia , Infecções por Coronavirus/prevenção & controle , Infecções por Coronavirus/terapia , Avaliação Pré-Clínica de Medicamentos , Interações entre Hospedeiro e Microrganismos/efeitos dos fármacos , Interações entre Hospedeiro e Microrganismos/genética , Interações entre Hospedeiro e Microrganismos/fisiologia , Humanos , Mutação , Testes de Neutralização , Pandemias/prevenção & controle , Peptidil Dipeptidase A/genética , Peptidil Dipeptidase A/fisiologia , Pneumonia Viral/prevenção & controle , Pneumonia Viral/terapia , Receptores Virais/genética , Receptores Virais/fisiologia , Recombinação Genética , SARS-CoV-2 , Serina Endopeptidases/fisiologia , Glicoproteína da Espícula de Coronavírus/genética , Células Vero , Vírus da Estomatite Vesicular Indiana/genética , Vacinas Virais/genética , Vacinas Virais/imunologia , Internalização do Vírus , Replicação Viral/genética , Tratamento Farmacológico da COVID-19RESUMO
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a common cause of chronic liver disease and a serious threat to human health. The HCV NS3/4A serine protease is necessary for viral replication and innate immune evasion, and represents a well-validated target for specific antiviral therapy. We previously reported the isolation of single-chain antibodies (scFvs) that inhibit NS3/4A protease activity in vitro. Expressed intracellularly (intrabodies), these scFvs blocked NS3-mediated proliferation of NS3-transfected cells. Here we show that anti-NS3 scFvs suppress HCV RNA replication when expressed intracellularly in Huh7 hepatoma cells bearing either subgenomic or genome-length HCV RNA replicons. The expression of intrabodies directed against NS3 inhibited the autonomous amplification of HCV replicons resistant to small-molecule inhibitors of the NS3/4A protease, and replicons derived from different HCV genotypes. The combination of intrabodies and interferon-α had an additive inhibitory effect on RNA replication in the replicon model. Intrabody expression also inhibited production of infectious HCV in a cell culture system. The NS3 protease activity was inhibited by the intrabodies in NS3-expressing cells. In contrast, cell-free synthesis of HCV RNA by preformed replicase complexes was not inhibited by intrabodies, suggesting that the major mode of inhibition of viral replication is inhibition of NS3/4A protease activity and subsequent suppression of viral polyprotein processing.