Increased growth ability and pathogenicity of American- and Pacific-subtype Zika virus (ZIKV) strains compared with a Southeast Asian-subtype ZIKV strain

Yasuhiro Kawai; Eri Nakayama; Kenta Takahashi; Satoshi Taniguchi; Ken-Ichi Shibasaki; Fumihiro Kato; Takahiro Maeki; Tadaki Suzuki; Shigeru Tajima; Masayuki Saijo; Chang-Kweng Lim

doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0007387

Increased growth ability and pathogenicity of American- and Pacific-subtype Zika virus (ZIKV) strains compared with a Southeast Asian-subtype ZIKV strain

PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2019 Jun 6;13(6):e0007387. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0007387. eCollection 2019 Jun.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Division of Biosafety Control and Research, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.
² Department of Virology I, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.
³ Inflammation Biology Group, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
⁴ Department of Pathology, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.

Abstract

We investigated the growth properties and virulence in mice of three Zika virus (ZIKV) strains of Asian/American lineage, PRVABC59, ZIKV/Hu/Chiba/S36/2016 (ChibaS36), and ZIKV/Hu/NIID123/2016 (NIID123), belonging to the three distinct subtypes of this lineage. The American-subtype strain, PRVABC59, showed the highest growth potential in vitro, whereas the Southeast Asian-subtype strain, NIID123, showed the lowest proliferative capacity. Moreover, PRVABC59- and NIID123-infected mice showed the highest and lowest viremia levels and infectious virus levels in the testis, respectively, and the rate of damaged testis in PRVABC59-infected mice was higher than in mice infected with the other two strains. Lastly, ZIKV NS1 antigen was detected in the damaged testes of mice infected with PRVABC59 and the Pacific-subtype strain, ChibaS36, at 2 weeks post-inoculation and in the epididymides of PRVABC59-infected mice at 6 weeks post-inoculation. Our results indicate that PRVABC59 and ChibaS36 exhibit increased abilities to grow in vitro and in vivo and to induce testis damage in mice.

Publication types

Comparative Study
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Blood / virology
Disease Models, Animal
Epididymis / virology
Male
Mice, Inbred C57BL
Testis / virology
Viral Load
Virulence
Zika Virus / growth & development*
Zika Virus / isolation & purification
Zika Virus / pathogenicity
Zika Virus Infection / virology*

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the Research Program on Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases of the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) under Grant Number JP18fk0108035 and JP18fk0108067. Eri Nakayama was supported in part by the Daiichi Sankyo Foundation of Life Science. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.