SARS-CoV-2, Virus-like Particles, Wild Type, Luciferase reporter

The hybrid alpha-pseudovirus for SARS-CoV-2 (Ha-CoV-2) is a newly developed SARS-CoV-2 virus-like particle (VLP) that encapsulates an alphavirus-derived RNA genome for rapid report expression (luciferase or GFP) in target cells (Hetrick et al., 2022). Different from commonly used S protein pseudotyped lenti- or vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-pseudoviruses, Ha-CoV-2 is assembled with all 4 structural proteins (S, M, N, and E) of SARS-CoV-2, and contains a reporter genome derived from an alphavirusbased vector for rapid (6 hours) and robust expression of reporter genes. The alphavirus vector does not contain any of the structural proteins from the authentic virus and the alpha-pseudovirus particles are single-cycle.