Visualizing lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection in cells and living mice

Mammarenavirus are a large family of enveloped negative-strand RNA viruses that include several agents responsible for severe hemorrhagic fevers. Until now, no FDA-licensed drug has been admitted for treating an arenavirus infection, and only few effective anti-arenavirus drugs have been tested in vivo. In this work, we designed a recombinant reporter arenavirus lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus that stably expressed nanoluciferase (LCMV-Nluc). The LCMV-Nluc was proved to share similar biological properties with wild-type LCMV and the Nluc intensity reliably reflected viral replication both in vitro and in vivo. Replication of the Nluc-encoding virus in living mice can be visualized by real-time bioluminescent imaging, and bioluminescence can be detected in a variety of organs of infected mice. This work provides a novel approach that enables real-time study of the arenavirus infection and is a convenient and valuable tool for screening of compounds that are active against arenaviruses in vitro and in living mice.