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Persistent, triple-virus co-infections in mosquito cells

BACKGROUND: It is known that insects and crustaceans can carry simultaneous, active infections of two or more viruses without showing signs of disease, but it was not clear whether co-infecting viruses occupied the same cells or different cells in common target tissues. Our previous work showed that...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Kanthong, Nipaporn, Khemnu, Nuanpan, Pattanakitsakul, Sa-Nga, Malasit, Prida, Flegel, Timothy W
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2817673/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20089150
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2180-10-14
Descripción
Sumario:BACKGROUND: It is known that insects and crustaceans can carry simultaneous, active infections of two or more viruses without showing signs of disease, but it was not clear whether co-infecting viruses occupied the same cells or different cells in common target tissues. Our previous work showed that successive challenge of mosquito cell cultures followed by serial, split-passage resulted in stabilized cultures with 100% of the cells co-infected with Dengue virus (DEN) and an insect parvovirus (densovirus) (DNV). By addition of Japanese encephalitis virus (JE), we tested our hypothesis that stable, persistent, triple-virus co-infections could be obtained by the same process. RESULTS: Using immunocytochemistry by confocal microscopy, we found that JE super-challenge of cells dually infected with DEN and DNV resulted in stable cultures without signs of cytopathology, and with 99% of the cells producing antigens of the 3 viruses. Location of antigens for all 3 viruses in the triple co-infections was dominant in the cell nuclei. Except for DNV, this differed from the distribution in cells persistently infected with the individual viruses or co-infected with DNV and DEN. The dependence of viral antigen distribution on single infection or co-infection status suggested that host cells underwent an adaptive process to accommodate 2 or more viruses. CONCLUSIONS: Individual mosquito cells can accommodate at least 3 viruses simultaneously in an adaptive manner. The phenomenon provides an opportunity for genetic exchange between diverse viruses and it may have important medical and veterinary implications for arboviruses.