Identifying Targets for Development of COVID-19 Drugs and Vaccines

Amsbio has extended its COVID-19 research portfolio with the introduction of a service to provide custom lentivirus pseudotyped with spike glycoprotein from SARS-CoV-2 to help researchers identify potential targets for development of therapeutic drugs and vaccines.

Various research groups around the world have demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 uses its spike glycoprotein S, a main target for neutralisation antibody, to bind its receptor, and mediate membrane fusion and virus entry.

In response to widespread demand, Amsbio has developed a custom service to provide ready-to-use in vitro and in vivo grade lentiviral particles pseudotyped with coronavirus S protein. Pseudotyping of lentivirus is available with wild type or mutant S proteins from a wide range of coronavirus species. In addition, Amsbio can offer wide ranging customisation options including addition of reporter genes for monitoring viral entry. This complete range of products are safe to be used in BSL-2 labs.

The Amsbio lentiviral system is a novel gene delivery tool using lentivectors for gene expression or knockdown. Lentivirus can effectively transduce both dividing and non-dividing mammalian cells, and integrate into the host genome, allowing stable long-term, high-level gene expression both in vivo and in vitro. Unlike traditional retroviral system, Amsbio lentivirus is much more actively imported into the nuclei of non-dividing cells and stably integrated into the host cell's genome independent of cell cycle.

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