ABSTRACT
Recent research has shown that Coronavirus (CoV) replication depends on active immunophilin pathways. Here we demonstrate that the drug FK506 (Tacrolimus) inhibited strongly the growth of human coronaviruses SARS-CoV, HCoV-NL63 and HCoV-229E at low, non-cytotoxic concentrations in cell culture. As shown by plaque titration, qPCR, Luciferase- and green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter gene expression, replication was diminished by several orders of magnitude. Knockdown of the cellular FK506-binding proteins FKBP1A and FKBP1B in CaCo2 cells prevented replication of HCoV-NL63, suggesting the requirement of these members of the immunophilin family for virus growth. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.
ABSTRACT
SARS-related coronaviruses have been known for several years to circulate in diverse bat species and they are known to have the potential to infect humans. The zoonotic emergence of SARS-CoV-2 exemplified that these viruses also have pandemic potential. Here I will show how we can reconstruct SARS-CoV-2 in order to obtain molecular clones for functional and phenotypic studies. Based on this novel reverse genetic system it is now possible to rapidly reconstruct SARS-CoV-2 and to phenotypically characterize SARS-CoV-2 variants that emerge during the pandemic in real-time.