WHO Vero RCB 10-87 cell line (Principal Pseudohaplotype) Genome sequencing and assembly

Originating from Chlorocebus sabaeus (African Green Monkey), the Vero cell line represents the most widely used continuous cell line for the production of viral vaccines with over 40 years of experience. This includes the development and production of vaccines against dengue fever, influenza, Japanese encephalitis, polio, rabies, rotavirus, smallpox and more recently, Ebola(using a Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) recombinant) (Barrett et al. 2009; Ammerman, Beier-Sexton, and Azad 2008). Furthermore, Vero cells have been identified as the cell line with the highest susceptibility to MERS-CoV(Liu et al. 2017), SARS-CoV and recently SARS-CoV-2(Hoffmann et al. 2020), but also Vero cells have been extensively used in the current response to Covid 19, as a platform for SARS-CoV-2 isolation and reproduction, viral vaccine production and identification of potential drug targets. However, these studies using the Vero cell line as a platform still suffer from the lack of published genomic information. This project focuses on the generation and improvement of a reference-grade assembly of the WHO-Vero genome which will provide a valuable resource for quality control, the generation of high-throughput engineered sub-lines and the development of pandemic-ready vaccine manufacturing platforms among others.