A nanoluciferase SARS-CoV-2 for rapid neutralization testing and screening of anti-infective drugs for COVID-19

• DOI: 10.1101/2020.06.22.165712
• Publication Date: 2020-06-24T03:24:36Z
• Authors: Xuping Xie; Antonio E. Muruato; Xianwen Zhang; Kumari G. Lokugamage; Camila R. Fontes-...; Jing Zou; Jianying Liu; Ping Ren; Mini Balakrishnan; Tomas Cihlar; Chien-Te K. Tseng; Shinji Makino; Vineet D. Menachery; John P. Bilello; Pei-Yong Shi
• Keywords: Vero cell

Abstract A high-throughput platform would greatly facilitate COVID-19 serological testing and antiviral screening. Here we report a nanoluciferase SARS-CoV-2 (SARS-CoV-2-Nluc) that is genetically stable replicates similarly to the wild-type virus in cell culture. We demonstrate optimized reporter assay Vero E6 cells can be used measure neutralizing antibody activity patient sera produces results concordance with plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT). Compared low-throughput PRNT (3 days), SARS-CoV-2-Nluc has substantially shorter turnaround time (5 hours) capacity. Thus, readily deployed for large-scale vaccine evaluation humans. Additionally, developed using infection of A549 expressing human ACE2 receptor (A549-hACE2). When tested against this virus, remdesivir exhibited more potent A549-hACE2 compared (EC 50 0.115 vs 1.28 μM), while difference was not observed chloroquine 1.32 3.52 underscoring importance selecting appropriate testing. Using assay, evaluated collection approved investigational antivirals other anti-infective drugs. Nelfinavir, rupintrivir, cobicistat were identified as most selective inhibitors 0.77 2.74 μM). In contrast, clinically antivirals, including tenofovir alafenamide, emtricitabine, sofosbuvir, ledipasvir, velpatasvir inactive at concentrations up 10 μM. Collectively, represents reliable tool rapid screening SARS-CoV-2.