Exploring the instability of reporters expressed under the subgenomic promoter in Chikungunya virus infectious cDNA clones

摘要

Background: Reverse genetics employ the use of infectious cDNA clone to study the phenotype of a virus by introducing mutation in its genome. Previous studies using Alphavirus double subgenomic infectious cDNA clone encoding reporters, have met with the loss of reporter gene expression in subsequent passages. In the present work, we have tried to address the instability of such recombinant viruses of Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) with reporters upon passaging.