Summary:
While only the spike protein is commonly used for pseudotyping the team was curious to see if including the other SARS CoV-2 proteins would influence pseudotyped virion infectivity. The team combined a type of virus vector called the lentivirus with a Covid-19 spike protein to produce 'spike lentiviruses.' Twenty-four different SARS CoV-2 viral proteins were included in the pseudovirus ensemble along with a fluorescent reporter to detect the infected cells. The infectivity of each of the pseudovirus containing one of the twenty-four proteins was studied. With this the researchers found that pseudovirus produced with the N-protein had higher infectivity than those containing other proteins..