An RNA replicon system to investigate promising inhibitors of feline coronavirus | Journal of Virology (asm.org)
An RNA replicon system to investigate promising inhibitors of feline coronavirus | Journal of Virology (asm.org)
«Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a fatal feline disease, caused by a feline coronavirus (FCoV). FIP is of great significance in the cat population, being a major cause of feline deaths in veterinary practices. As there are no approved treatment options available, there is an urgent need to identify antiviral drugs against FIPV. A baby hamster kidney 21 cell line expressing a serotype I Feline Coronavirus replicon RNA with a green fluorescent protein reporter gene was produced and used as an in vitro screening system to test different antiviral compounds. Multiple effective candidates were found and the successful implementation of this system for antiviral screening was demonstrated. It can be expected that this system will facilitate future screens for anti-FCoV compounds and provide a non-infectious system to study and evaluate drug resistance mutations that may emerge in the FCoV genome.»