A Dual-Fluorescence Labeling Pseudovirus for Real-Time Imaging of Single SARS-CoV-2 Entry in Respiratory Epithelial Cells

The pseudovirus strategy makes studies of highly pathogenic viruses feasible without the restriction of high-level biosafety facility, thus greatly contributing to virology and being used in research of SARS-CoV-2. Here, we generated a dual-color pseudo-SARS-CoV-2 virus using an HIV-1 pseudovirus production system and the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) glycoprotein, of which the membrane was labeled with lipophilic dye (DiO) and the genomic RNA-related viral protein R (Vpr) of the viral core were fused with mCherry. With this dual-color labeling strategy, not only the movement of the whole virus but also the fate of the labeled components can be traced. The pseudovirions were applied to track viral entry at a single particle level in four types of the human respiratory cells: nasal epithelial cells (HNEpC), pulmonary alveolar epithelial cells (HPAEpiC), bronchial epithelial cells (BEP-2D), and oral epithelial cells (HOEC). Pseudo-SARS-CoV-2 entered into the host cell and released viral core into the cytoplasm，which clearly indicates that the host entry mainly occurred through endocytosis. The infection efficiency was found to be correlated with the expression of the known receptor of SARS-CoV-2, angiotensin-converting 2 (ACE2) on the host cell surface. We believe that the dual-color fluorescence labeled pseudovirus system created in this study can be a useful tool in SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 for many purposes.