UCLA

Influenza A virus is a major causative agent of respiratory diseases in humans. It causes significant morbidity, mortality and economic losses each year worldwide with about 3-5 million clinical infections per annum. Its ability to mutate rapidly leads to seasonal epidemics and with its high frequency of genetic reassortment it causes pandemics. Conventional methods of studying viral pathogenesis do not allow for monitoring viral spread in real time during an infection. Whole body bioluminescent imaging of infected animals will overcome many of the problems associated with the current methods. In this work the wild type Influenza A/WSN/33 was engineered to carry a luciferase reporter gene in segment 1, based on a well established reverse genetics system for Influenza A viruses. The novel reporter WSN virus will enable less expensive, non-invasive in vivo imaging of viral replication and better evaluation of novel therapeutics.