Pseudovirus-Based Antiviral
The most common application of Pseudovirus (PV) is serving as a safer, easier-to-handle alternative to viable viruses, requiring laboratories at only BSL-2. Artificially synthesized PVs contain surface proteins mediating viral entry into host cells, allowing them to infect susceptible cells while halting after only one round. This feature of PVs holds great potential for investigation in viral entry and initial host cell response at lower risk. Previous comparative data has demonstrated the promising similarity between the outcomes from PV- and virus-based assays. Therefore, researchers have now been implementing PV-based model systems to their preliminary research in order to more safely mimic viral infection. Application of such system might also help controlling cytotoxicity caused by infection using full virus since PV replication has only one round. Typically, PVs are engineered to carry reporter genes such as fluorescent proteins or luciferase, allowing for better, more convenient outcome visualization.