Abstract
The main protease, Mpro, of SARS-CoV-2 is required to cleave the viral polyprotein into precise functional units for virus replication and pathogenesis. Here we demonstrate a quantitative reporter for Mpro function in living cells, in which protease inhibition by genetic or chemical methods results in strong eGFP fluorescence. This robust gain-of-function system readily distinguishes between inhibitor potencies and can be scaled-up to high-throughput platforms for drug testing.
Competing Interest Statement
RSH is a co founder, shareholder, and consultant of ApoGen Biotechnologies Inc. The other authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Footnotes
Copyright
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Posted November 09, 2020.
