Using Vesicular Stomatitis Virus as a Platform for Directed Protease Evolution.

ABSTRACT: Antiviral drugs are essential medications to save the lives of infected people. However, they are under constant threat to become ineffective as viruses evolve quickly. Studying the development of resistance is therefore paramount to understand the impact of mutations on pharmacological treatment and to make informed decisions. Yet, such studies are open to scrutiny, as they are considered gain-of-function research, which is especially problematic with viruses of pandemic potential. In this article, we present a protocol that allows for the selection of antiviral resistance mutations safely, without using the actual virus (e.g., SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV). Instead, we use vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) that serves as a surrogate virus; like other RNA viruses, it is prone to mutations due to i

SUBMITTER: Costacurta F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11664493 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature