REVIEW article
Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.
Sec. Virus and Host
Reporter-expressing Viruses for Antiviral Drug Discovery Research
Provisionally accepted
- 1Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional Republik Indonesia, Central Jakarta, Indonesia
- 2Tokyo Daigaku, Bunkyo, Japan
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Viruses continue to pose major global health challenges, with recent pandemics underscoring the urgent need for effective antiviral therapeutics. While vaccines have reduced the burden of some viral diseases, many remain difficult to control. Antiviral drug discovery relies on identifying and validating suitable targets through both target-based and phenotype-based screening strategies. Traditional antiviral assays are accurate but labor-intensive and not easily adaptable for high-throughput analysis. Advances in reverse genetics have enabled the development of reporter-expressing recombinant viruses, which allow real-time tracking of viral replication and are increasingly used in high-throughput screening. This review highlights the application of fluorescent and bioluminescent reporter systems in antiviral drug discovery, emphasizing their advantages, limitations, and future prospects.
Keywords: reporter-expressing virus, Antiviral agent, Drug Discovery, Fluorescence protein, bioluminescence protein
Received: 11 Jun 2025; Accepted: 26 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Praditya, Waluyo and Nozaki. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Dimas Fandi Praditya
Tomoyoshi Nozaki
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.