Integrated pipeline using ANCHOR tagged autofluorescent viruses for accelerated discovery of antiviral molecules

ABSTRACT

As successive pandemics have shown that antiviral discovery and validation should be done as a continuous process and all viruses should be considered as a potential threat. For this purpose, we have, we have developed a visualization technique called ANCHORTM that allows us to visualize directly in real-time in living cells infection, localization, replication and cell-to-cell spread of any kind of viruses having a dsDNA phase. This technology has been successfully used to image different kinds of viruses, including herpesviruses, adenovirus, poxviruses and retroviruses. Combined with an automatic pipetting robot and high content microscopy, the technology allows the screening of a large number of molecules or conditions very rapidly and efficiently without any fixation, extraction or reagent. Based on our expertise, we have also developed an image-based screening pipeline for RNA viruses such as RSV, influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2. With a collection of around 30 viruses impacting the human, animal and biodefense markets, we propose one of the most integrated antiviral screening pipelines so far, from early discovery to animal testing in A3 conditions. Two antiviral molecules discovered in the lab will be presented, the first one impacting the animal market and the second one funded by a large grant from the French Ministry of Armed Forces.