Pseudovirus

COVID-19 crises have led to enormous worldwide efforts to urgently develop drug treatments and vaccines effective against SARS-CoV-2. Due to the high infectivity and pathogenicity, SARS-CoV-2 should be dealt with in biosafety level 3 laboratories, which limit the anti-viral measure development. Pseudoviruses have the essential components for cell entry and viral infection, but lack of nucleic acid and lose self-replication ability. They have been regarded as the effective virological tools due to their safety and versatility, especially for appearing and re-appearing viruses. At present, researchers use pseudoviruses to mimic SARS-CoV-2 virus for further studies.