Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the cause of the pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As the first step of the viral replication, the virus attaches to the host cell surface before entering the cell. The viral Spike protein recognizes and attaches to the Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor. So, the blockage of interaction between angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and S protein is an essential target. Drugs targeting the interaction between the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and ACE2 may offer protection against the viral infection.
In our SARS-CoV-2 Neutralization & Blocking Assay, we transduce HEK293 cells stably expressing ACE2 with SARS-CoV-2-Spike pseudotyped lentivirus (containing luciferase reporter). After 48 hours of transduction, we measure luciferase expression in the target cells performing a luciferase assay. We use chloromethylketone (CMK) as inhibitor control of the pseudoparticles infection, which shows a reduction higher than 60% of luciferase expression.
SARS-CoV-2 Neutralization & Blocking Assay from Innoprot allows the identification of test-compounds or neutralizing antibodies, which inhibit the ability of Spike-pseudotyped lentiviruses to infect HEK293T cells expressing ACE2.
Assay: Therapeutic area