Application of Pseudotyped Viruses.

Highly pathogenic emerging and reemerging viruses have serious public health and socioeconomic implications. Although conventional live virus research methods can more reliably investigate disease pathogenicity and evaluate antiviral products, they usually depend on high-level biosafety laboratories and skilled researchers; these requirements hinder in vitro assessments of efficacy, as well as efforts to test vaccines and antibody drugs. In contrast, pseudotyped viruses (i.e., single-round infectious viruses that mimic the membrane structures of various live viruses) are widely used in studies of highly pathogenic viruses because they can be handled in biosafety level 2 facilities. This chapter provides a concise overview of various aspects of pseudotyped virus technologies, including (1) exploration of the mechanisms of viral infection; (2) evaluation of the efficacies of vaccines and monoclonal antibodies based on pseudovirion-based neutralization assay; (3) assessment of antiviral agents (i.e., antibody-based drugs and inhibitors); (4) establishment of animal models of pseudotyped virus infection in vivo; (5) investigation of the evolution, infectivity, and antigenicity of viral variants and viral glycosylation; and (6) prediction of antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxic activity.