Notably the development of replicating competent reporter expressing viruses rcrevs has provided an excellent option to detect directly viral replication without the use of secondary labeling which represents a significant advance in virology. In summary reporter expressing replicating competent iav represent a powerful tool for the study of iav both in vitro and in vivo keywords fluorescence luminescence plasmid based reverse genetics recombinant influenza a virus replicating competent reporter expressing influenza a virus reporter genes virus rescue approaches. Stable incorporation of foreign genes in replication competent reporter expressing iav allows for effective tracking of viral infection in vitro and in vivo enabling a robust quantitative readout this readout can be used with high throughput screenings hts and to assess viral infection in tissue culture cells and animals models without the use of secondary approaches to identify the presence of the virus. Replication competent influenza a viruses expressing reporter genes michael breen aitor nogales steven f baker luis martinez sobrido affiliations michael breen department of microbiology and immunology university of rochester school of medicine and dentistry 601 elmwood avenue rochester ny 14642 usa