Background
The emergence and continued global spread of the current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for
Conclusions
The phenomics approach presented here, which makes use of a modified Cell Painting protocol by incorporating an anti-virus antibody stain, can be used for the unbiased morphological profiling of virus infection on host cells. The method can identify antiviral reference compounds, as well as novel antivirals, demonstrating its suitability to be implemented as a strategy for antiviral drug repurposing and drug discovery.
Results
We combine Cell Painting with antibody-based detection of viral infection in a single assay. We designed an image analysis pipeline for segmentation and classification of virus-infected and non-infected cells, followed by extraction of morphological properties. We show that this methodology can successfully capture virus-induced phenotypic signatures of MRC-5 human lung fibroblasts infected with human coronavirus 229E (CoV-229E). Moreover, we demonstrate that our method can be used in phenotypic drug screening using a panel of nine host- and virus-targeting antivirals. Treatment with effective antiviral compounds reversed the morphological profile of the host cells towards a non-infected state. Conclusions: The phenomics approach presented here, which makes use of a modified Cell Painting protocol by incorporating an anti-virus antibody stain, can be used for the unbiased morphological profiling of virus infection on host cells. The method can identify antiviral reference compounds, as well as novel antivirals, demonstrating its suitability to be implemented as a strategy for antiviral drug repurposing and drug discovery.