Reporter virus particles

Partial viruses engineered for study

Reporter virus particles (RVPs) are replication-incompetent virus particles engineered to express one or more reporter genes upon infecting susceptible cells. Since the RVP genome lacks genes essential for viral replication, RVPs are capable of only a single round of infection. Thus they are safe to work with under BSL-2 conditions, enabling the study of highly pathogenic viruses using standard laboratory facilities. Expression of a reporter such as luciferase can provide a quantitative readout of infection. With proper design and quality control, RVPs remain stable under common assay conditions and yield reproducible results that correlate with those obtained from live virus. These qualities make RVPs a safer and faster alternative to plaque assays, and especially well-suited for high-throughput applications. RVPs offer flexibility for different uses, as they are antigenically identical to wild-type virus, and can be engineered with various proteins or express mutant envelopes to study infectivity or antigenicity.

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