Pseudotyped Vesicular Stomatitis Virus-Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 Spike for the Study of Variants, Vaccines, and Therapeutics Against Coronavirus Disease 2019

Abstract

World Health Organization (WHO) has prioritized the infectious emerging diseases such as Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in terms of research and development of effective tests, vaccines, antivirals, and other treatments. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the etiological causative agent of COVID-19, is a virus belonging to risk group 3 that requires Biosafety Level (BSL)-3 laboratories and the corresponding facilities for handling. An alternative to these BSL-3/-4 laboratories is to use a pseudotyped virus that can be handled in a BSL-2 laboratory for study purposes. Recombinant Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) can be generated with complementary DNA from complete negative-stranded genomic RNA, with deleted G glycoprotein and, instead, incorporation of other fusion protein, like SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S protein). Accordingly, it is called pseudotyped VSV-SARS-CoV-2 S. In this review, we have described the generation of pseudotyped VSV with a focus on the optimization and application of pseudotyped VSV-SARS-CoV-2 S. The application of this pseudovirus has been addressed by its use in neutralizing antibody assays in order to evaluate a new vaccine, emergent SARS-CoV-2 variants (delta and omicron), and approved vaccine efficacy against variants of concern as well as in viral fusion-focused treatment analysis that can be performed under BSL-2 conditions.

The Bovine Seminal Plasma Protein PDC-109 Possesses Pan-Antiviral Activity

“…In the light of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, we first tested whether PDC-109 could have protective effects against VSV* entry, mediated by the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. In recent months, the VSV*ΔG(Luc) replicon and related systems have been extensively used for SARS-CoV-2 virus entry research, as well as numerous broad-scale neutralization and seroprevalence studies [31,[41][42][43][44][45]. Here, we show that PDC-109 completely abolishes VSV*SARS CoV-2 infections at high micromolar concentrations, however accompanied with signficant cytotoxocity when applied for extended periods of time (24 hours, Figure 1).…”

Nanoscale Technologies in the Fight against COVID-19: From Innovative Nanomaterials to Computer-Aided Discovery of Potential Antiviral Plant-Derived Drugs

“…The human ACE2 (hACE2)-containing NCs were produced from the cellular membrane of genetically engineering human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293T cells stably expressing ACE2 (hACE2-293T), obtained by 293T cells infected with lentivirus encoding hACE2. The neutralizing ability of these NCs was demonstrated using vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-based pseudotyped SARS-CoV-2, since the pseudovirus containing the S protein of coronaviruses is a reliable and safe tool for screening and characterizing new drugs with anticoronavirus infection activities [ 178 ]. These NCs exhibited excellent neutralization ability against pseudoviruses of both wild-type SARS-CoV-2 and the D614G variant.…”

Developing Pseudovirus-Based Neutralization Assay against Omicron-Included SARS-CoV-2 Variants

“…An alternative method is packaging convenient and reliable replication-defective pseudovirus expressing the S protein that can be used under BSL-2 conditions. To date, the development of SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses using human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-based lentiviral particles [21,22], murine leukemia virus (MLV)-based retroviral particles [21][22][23], or vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-based systems [21,[24][25][26] has become a powerful tool for evaluating the efficacy of therapeutic drugs and vaccines, and the results from such pseudovirus neutralization assays correlate well with the results of measurements using authentic viruses [22,27].…”