Visualizing lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection in cells and living mice

Yuxi Wen; Huan Xu; Weiwei Wan; Weijuan Shang; Runming Jin; Fen Zhou; Heng Mei; Jingshi Wang; Gengfu Xiao; Hongbo Chen; Xiaoyan Wu; Leike Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.105090

Visualizing lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection in cells and living mice

iScience. 2022 Sep 7;25(10):105090. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105090. eCollection 2022 Oct 21.

Authors

Yuxi Wen¹, Huan Xu¹, Weiwei Wan², Weijuan Shang², Runming Jin¹, Fen Zhou¹, Heng Mei^{3

4}, Jingshi Wang⁵, Gengfu Xiao^{2

6}, Hongbo Chen¹, Xiaoyan Wu¹, Leike Zhang^{2

6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430022, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
³ Institute of Haematology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430022, China.
⁴ Hubei Clinical and Research Centre of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, Wuhan, China.
⁵ Department of Hematology, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
⁶ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁷ Hubei Jiangxia Laboratory,Wuhan 430000, China.

Abstract

Mammarenavirus are a large family of enveloped negative-strand RNA viruses that include several agents responsible for severe hemorrhagic fevers. Until now, no FDA-licensed drug has been admitted for treating an arenavirus infection, and only few effective anti-arenavirus drugs have been tested in vivo. In this work, we designed a recombinant reporter arenavirus lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus that stably expressed nanoluciferase (LCMV-Nluc). The LCMV-Nluc was proved to share similar biological properties with wild-type LCMV and the Nluc intensity reliably reflected viral replication both in vitro and in vivo. Replication of the Nluc-encoding virus in living mice can be visualized by real-time bioluminescent imaging, and bioluminescence can be detected in a variety of organs of infected mice. This work provides a novel approach that enables real-time study of the arenavirus infection and is a convenient and valuable tool for screening of compounds that are active against arenaviruses in vitro and in living mice.

Keywords: Methodology in biological sciences; Virology.