Development of an EBOV MiniG plus system as an advanced tool for anti-Ebola virus drug screening

Chi-Ju Hsu; Cheng-Hsiu Chen; Wen-Ting Chen; Ping-Cheng Liu; Tein-Yao Chang; Meng-He Lin; Cheng-Cheung Chen; Hsing-Yu Chen; Chih-Heng Huang; Yun-Hsiang Cheng; Jun-Ren Sun

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e22138

Development of an EBOV MiniG plus system as an advanced tool for anti-Ebola virus drug screening

Heliyon. 2023 Nov 11;9(11):e22138. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e22138. eCollection 2023 Nov.

Authors

Chi-Ju Hsu^{1

2}, Cheng-Hsiu Chen^{1

2}, Wen-Ting Chen¹, Ping-Cheng Liu^{1

3}, Tein-Yao Chang^{1

4}, Meng-He Lin¹, Cheng-Cheung Chen^{1

2}, Hsing-Yu Chen⁵, Chih-Heng Huang^{1

2}, Yun-Hsiang Cheng^{1

6}, Jun-Ren Sun^{1

2

6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Preventive Medicine, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
² Graduate Institute of Medical Science, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
³ Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Pathology and Graduate Institute of Pathology and Parasitology, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Medical Techniques, Taipei City Hospital Ren-Ai Branch, Taiwan.
⁶ Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Graduate Institute of Physiology, National Defense Medical Center, Taiwan.
⁷ Division of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taiwan.

Abstract

The incidence of zoonotic diseases, such as coronavirus disease 2019 and Ebola virus disease, is increasing worldwide. However, drug and vaccine development for zoonotic diseases has been hampered because the experiments involving live viruses are limited to high-containment laboratories. The Ebola virus minigenome system enables researchers to study the Ebola virus under BSL-2 conditions. Here, we found that the addition of the nucleocapsid protein of human coronaviruses, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, can increase the ratio of green fluorescent protein-positive cells by 1.5-2 folds in the Ebola virus minigenome system. Further analysis showed that the nucleocapsid protein acts as an activator of the Ebola virus minigenome system. Here, we developed an EBOV MiniG Plus system based on the Ebola virus minigenome system by adding the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein. By evaluating the antiviral effect of remdesivir and rupintrivir, we demonstrated that compared to that of the traditional Ebola virus minigenome system, significant concentration-dependent activity was observed in the EBOV MiniG Plus system. Taken together, these results demonstrate the utility of adding nucleocapsid protein to the Ebola virus minigenome system to create a powerful platform for screening antiviral drugs against the Ebola virus.

Keywords: Ebola virus; Human coronaviruses; Nucleocapsid protein; minigenome.