Development of a high-throughput method to screen novel antiviral materials

Respiratory infectious diseases pose a serious threat worldwide, and novel antiviral materials are highly demanded. Photocatalytic nanoparticles have been developed to inhibit indirect transmission of pathogens by acting as surface coating materials. During development of such antiviral materials, researchers use bacteriophages as model viruses due to their safety and experimental efficiency. Screening methods are used to identify potential antiviral materials, and better screening technologies will accelerate the discovery of antiviral treatments. In this study, we constructed a novel platform to evaluate antiviral activity of surface coating materials using the M13 bacteriophage and phagemid system derived from phage display technology. The evaluation results generated by this system for the two tested antiviral materials were comparable to those for the materials tested on the Qβ bacteriophage and influenza virus using traditional screening methods. The experimental system developed in this study provides rapid and effective screening and can be applied to the development of novel antiviral materials.