The corona pandemic is still causing countless illnesses and deaths worldwide. It is all the more important to fully elucidate the molecular mechanisms behind infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Because knowledge of viral functions and the interactions between host cell and virus can facilitate the development of better therapies, vaccines or other preventive measures.
However, when researching virus behavior in the laboratory, it is not always helpful to use coronaviruses from, for example, samples from infected patients or breeding cultures. On the one hand, the individual viruses can differ in details of their structure and behavior depending on the mutation. In addition, it is difficult for them to consider individual mechanisms separately during infection. On the other hand, dealing with infectious viruses requires special safety precautions that make the experiment more difficult and more complex.
A development by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg and their colleagues provides a remedy. They have constructed minimalist synthetic virus particles that can facilitate systematic and standardized research into Sars-CoV-2. These virions have a protein structure similar to natural viruses, but do not contain any genetic information and are therefore non-infectious. “This enables us to carry out a very systematic, step-by-step investigation of various mechanisms,” explains Oskar Staufer from the University of Oxford.
In this image, the artificial virus particles stained with fluorescent markers can be seen in magenta. They were freshly added to a cell culture of human epithelial cells (green) to study the onset of infection and the cellular defense mechanisms it triggers.