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Davies KA, Welch SR, Jain S, Sorvillo TE, Coleman-McCray JD, Montgomery JM, Spiropoulou CF, Albariño C, Spengler JR. Fluorescent and Bioluminescent Reporter Mouse-Adapted Ebola Viruses Maintain Pathogenicity and Can Be Visualized in Vivo. J Infect Dis 2023; 228:S536-S547. [PMID: 37145895 PMCID: PMC11014640 DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiad136] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2023] [Revised: 04/26/2023] [Accepted: 04/29/2023] [Indexed: 05/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Ebola virus (EBOV) causes lethal disease in humans but not in mice. Here, we generated recombinant mouse-adapted (MA) EBOVs, including 1 based on the previously reported serially adapted strain (rMA-EBOV), along with single-reporter rMA-EBOVs expressing either fluorescent (ZsGreen1 [ZsG]) or bioluminescent (nano-luciferase [nLuc]) reporters, and dual-reporter rMA-EBOVs expressing both ZsG and nLuc. No detriment to viral growth in vitro was seen with inclusion of MA-associated mutations or reporter proteins. In CD-1 mice, infection with MA-EBOV, rMA-EBOV, and single-reporter rMA-EBOVs conferred 100% lethality; infection with dual-reporter rMA-EBOV resulted in 73% lethality. Bioluminescent signal from rMA-EBOV expressing nLuc was detected in vivo and ex vivo using the IVIS Spectrum CT. Fluorescent signal from rMA-EBOV expressing ZsG was detected in situ using handheld blue-light transillumination and ex vivo through epi-illumination with the IVIS Spectrum CT. These data support the use of reporter MA-EBOV for studies of Ebola virus in animal disease models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katherine A Davies
- Viral Special Pathogens Branch, Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - Stephen R Welch
- Viral Special Pathogens Branch, Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - Shilpi Jain
- Viral Special Pathogens Branch, Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - Teresa E Sorvillo
- Viral Special Pathogens Branch, Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - JoAnn D Coleman-McCray
- Viral Special Pathogens Branch, Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - Joel M Montgomery
- Viral Special Pathogens Branch, Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - Christina F Spiropoulou
- Viral Special Pathogens Branch, Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - César Albariño
- Viral Special Pathogens Branch, Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - Jessica R Spengler
- Viral Special Pathogens Branch, Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
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Khan JQ, Rohamare M, Rajamanickam K, Bhanumathy KK, Lew J, Kumar A, Falzarano D, Vizeacoumar FJ, Wilson JA. Generation of a SARS-CoV-2 Reverse Genetics System and Novel Human Lung Cell Lines That Exhibit High Virus-Induced Cytopathology. Viruses 2023; 15:1281. [PMID: 37376581 DOI: 10.3390/v15061281] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2023] [Revised: 05/25/2023] [Accepted: 05/29/2023] [Indexed: 06/29/2023] Open
Abstract
The global COVID-19 pandemic continues with continued cases worldwide and the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants. In our study, we have developed novel tools with applications for screening antivirals, identifying virus-host dependencies, and characterizing viral variants. Using reverse genetics, we rescued SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan1 (D614G variant) wild type (WTFL) and reporter virus (NLucFL) using molecular BAC clones. The replication kinetics, plaque morphology, and titers were comparable between viruses rescued from molecular clones and a clinical isolate (VIDO-01 strain). Furthermore, the reporter SARS-CoV-2 NLucFL virus exhibited robust luciferase values over the time course of infection and was used to develop a rapid antiviral assay using remdesivir as proof-of-principle. In addition, as a tool to study lung-relevant virus-host interactions, we established novel human lung cell lines that support SARS-CoV-2 infection with high virus-induced cytopathology. Six lung cell lines (NCI-H23, A549, NCI-H1703, NCI-H520, NCI-H226, and HCC827) and HEK293T cells were transduced to stably express ACE2 and tested for their ability to support virus infection. A549ACE2 B1 and HEK293TACE2 A2 cell lines exhibited more than 70% virus-induced cell death, and a novel lung cell line, NCI-H23ACE2 A3, showed about ~99% cell death post-infection. These cell lines are ideal for assays relying on live-dead selection, such as CRISPR knockout and activation screens.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juveriya Qamar Khan
- Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E5, Canada
| | - Megha Rohamare
- Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E5, Canada
| | - Karthic Rajamanickam
- Division of Oncology, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E5, Canada
| | - Kalpana K Bhanumathy
- Division of Oncology, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E5, Canada
| | - Jocelyne Lew
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO), University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E3, Canada
| | - Anil Kumar
- Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E5, Canada
| | - Darryl Falzarano
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO), University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E3, Canada
- Department of Veterinary Microbiology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5B4, Canada
| | - Franco J Vizeacoumar
- Division of Oncology, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E5, Canada
- Cancer Research Department, Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E5, Canada
| | - Joyce A Wilson
- Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E5, Canada
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Torres FJ, Parry R, Hugo LE, Slonchak A, Newton ND, Vet LJ, Modhiran N, Pullinger B, Wang X, Potter J, Winterford C, Hobson-Peters J, Hall RA, Khromykh AA. Reporter Flaviviruses as Tools to Demonstrate Homologous and Heterologous Superinfection Exclusion. Viruses 2022; 14:1501. [PMID: 35891480 DOI: 10.3390/v14071501] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/26/2022] [Revised: 07/05/2022] [Accepted: 07/06/2022] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Binjari virus (BinJV) is a lineage II or dual-host affiliated insect-specific flavivirus previously demonstrated as replication-deficient in vertebrate cells. Previous studies have shown that BinJV is tolerant to exchanging its structural proteins (prM-E) with pathogenic flaviviruses, making it a safe backbone for flavivirus vaccines. Here, we report generation by circular polymerase extension reaction of BinJV expressing zsGreen or mCherry fluorescent protein. Recovered BinJV reporter viruses grew to high titres (107−8 FFU/mL) in Aedes albopictus C6/36 cells assayed using immunoplaque assays (iPA). We also demonstrate that BinJV reporters could be semi-quantified live in vitro using a fluorescence microplate reader with an observed linear correlation between quantified fluorescence of BinJV reporter virus-infected C6/36 cells and iPA-quantitated virus titres. The utility of the BinJV reporter viruses was then examined in homologous and heterologous superinfection exclusion assays. We demonstrate that primary infection of C6/36 cells with BinJVzsGreen completely inhibits a secondary infection with homologous BinJVmCherry or heterologous ZIKVmCherry using fluorescence microscopy and virus quantitation by iPA. Finally, BinJVzsGreen infections were examined in vivo by microinjection of Aedes aegypti with BinJVzsGreen. At seven days post-infection, a strong fluorescence in the vicinity of salivary glands was detected in frozen sections. This is the first report on the construction of reporter viruses for lineage II insect-specific flaviviruses and establishes a tractable system for exploring flavivirus superinfection exclusion in vitro and in vivo.
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Ye C, Chiem K, Park JG, Silvas JA, Morales Vasquez D, Sourimant J, Lin MJ, Greninger AL, Plemper RK, Torrelles JB, Kobie JJ, Walter MR, de la Torre JC, Martinez-Sobrido L. Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 infection dynamic in vivo using reporter-expressing viruses. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021; 118:e2111593118. [PMID: 34561300 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2111593118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/05/2021] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of the current COVID-19 pandemic, is one of the biggest threats to public health. However, the dynamic of SARS-CoV-2 infection remains poorly understood. Replication-competent recombinant viruses expressing reporter genes provide valuable tools to investigate viral infection. Low levels of reporter gene expressed from previous reporter-expressing recombinant (r)SARS-CoV-2 in the locus of the open reading frame (ORF)7a protein have jeopardized their use to monitor the dynamic of SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro or in vivo. Here, we report an alternative strategy where reporter genes were placed upstream of the highly expressed viral nucleocapsid (N) gene followed by a porcine tescherovirus (PTV-1) 2A proteolytic cleavage site. The higher levels of reporter expression using this strategy resulted in efficient visualization of rSARS-CoV-2 in infected cultured cells and excised lungs or whole organism of infected K18 human angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) transgenic mice. Importantly, real-time viral infection was readily tracked using a noninvasive in vivo imaging system and allowed us to rapidly identify antibodies which are able to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 infection in vivo. Notably, these reporter-expressing rSARS-CoV-2, in which a viral gene was not deleted, not only retained wild-type (WT) virus-like pathogenicity in vivo but also exhibited high stability in vitro and in vivo, supporting their use to investigate viral infection, dissemination, pathogenesis, and therapeutic interventions for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 in vivo.
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Abstract
Flaviviruses are significant human pathogens that cause frequent emerging and reemerging epidemics around the world. Better molecular tools for studying, diagnosing, and treating these diseases are needed. Reporter viruses represent potent tools to fill this gap but have been hindered by genetic instability. Recent advances have overcome these hurdles, opening the way for increased use of stable reporter flaviviruses to diagnose infections, screen and study antiviral compounds, and serve as potential vaccine vectors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Coleman Baker
- Microbiology and Immunology Department, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555, USA;
| | - Pei-Yong Shi
- Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555, USA
- Institute for Human Infections & Immunity, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555, USA
- Institute for Translational Science, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555, USA
- Sealy Institute for Vaccine Sciences, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555, USA
- Sealy Center for Structural Biology & Molecular Biophysics, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555, USA
- Correspondence:
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