Growth and quantification of MERS-CoV infection

Abstract

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is an emerging highly pathogenic respiratory virus. Although MERS-CoV only emerged in 2012, we and others have developed assays to grow and quantify infectious MERS-CoV and RNA products of replication in vitro. MERS-CoV is able to infect a range of cell types, but replicates to high titers in Vero E6 cells. Protocols for the propagation and quantification of MERS-CoV are presented.