Chikungunya virus induces a more moderate cytopathic effect in mosquito cells than in mammalian cells.
OBJECTIVE
Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an alphavirus belonging to the Togaviridae family. Alphaviruses cause a chronic non-cytopathic infection in mosquito cells, while they develop a highly cytopathic infection in cells originating from various vertebrates. In this study, we compared the cytopathic effect (CPE) induced by CHIKV in Vero cells and a mosquito cell line, C6/36 cells.


METHODS
CPE and the virus titers were compared between the CHIKV-infected C6/36 and Vero cells. Apoptosis was measured by TUNEL assay, and the differences between the C6/36 and Vero cells were compared.


RESULTS
CHIKV infection induced strong CPE and apoptosis in the Vero cells, but light CPE in the C6/36 cells. The virus titers produced in the C6/36 cells were much higher than those produced in the Vero cells.


CONCLUSIONS
The reason CHIKV induced strong CPE is that this virus triggers strong apoptosis in Vero cells compared with C6/36 cells. CHIKV established a persistent infection in C6/36 cells after being passaged 20 times. CHIKV infection in mosquito cells was distinct from that in Vero cells. The cell and species specificity of CHIKV-induced cell death implies that the cellular and viral regulators involved in apoptosis may play an important role in determining the outcome of CHIKV infection.
Department of Virology, Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan. yonggang @ biken.osaka-u.ac.jp
Yong-Gang
YG
Li
Uamporn
U
Siripanyaphinyo
Uranan
U
Tumkosit
Nitchakarn
N
Noranate
Atchareeya
A
A-nuegoonpipat
Ran
R
Tao
Takeshi
T
Kurosu
Kazuyoshi
K
Ikuta
Naokazu
N
Takeda
Surapee
S
Anantapreecha
D018354:Alphavirus Infections; D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis; D002460:Cell Line; D065632:Chikungunya Fever; D002646:Chikungunya virus / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D002522:Chlorocebus aethiops; D009033:Culicidae / Q000821:virology*; D020287:In Situ Nick-End Labeling; D013045:Species Specificity; D014709:Vero Cells; D019562:Viral Load; D014779:Virus Replication / Q000502:physiology