A mammalian cell-based screening assay to identify inhibitors of alphaviruses

摘要

The current invention concerns a method to identify modulators of virulence of an Alphavirus, comprising the steps of i) expressing an Alphavirus non-structural protein 2 (nsP2) coding sequence in at least one subject mammalian cell in vitro ; (ii-a) introducing a first reporter gene under the transcriptional control of an inducible promoter into said at least one subject mammalian cell in vitro ; (iii) monitoring the activity of said first reporter gene in vitro ; (iv) comparing said activity of said first reporter gene of step (iii) to at least one control mammalian cell not expressing said nsP2 coding sequence and comprising said first reporter gene under the transcriptional control of said inducible promoter in vitro.