Investigating the pathogenesis of chronic chikungunya virus infection
| Autor: | Marissa Christine Locke, Alissa Young, Lindsey E. Cook, Kristen Monte, Deborah Lenschow |
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| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The Journal of Immunology. 204:171.6-171.6 |
| ISSN: | 1550-6606 0022-1767 |
| Popis: | Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an arthritogenic alphavirus that acutely causes fever as well as severe joint and muscle pain. Chronic musculoskeletal pain persists in a substantial fraction of patients for months to years after infection. While replicating virus is not detected in joint-associated tissues of patients nor in various animal models at convalescent time points, viral RNA is detected months after acute infection. To identify the cells that might contribute to chronic pathogenesis, we developed a recombinant CHIKV that expresses Cre recombinase (CHIKV-3′-Cre). CHIKV-3′-Cre infection of tdTomato reporter mice resulted in a population of tdTomato+ cells that persisted for at least 112 days. Immunofluorescence and flow cytometric profiling 28 days post infection revealed that these tdTomato+ cells were predominantly myofibers and fibroblasts as well as a small population of macrophages. Further, tdTomato+ cells are enriched for CHIKV RNA. Interestingly, the population of surviving cells was dynamic over time with macrophages making up a high percentage of the cells early and then tapering off. We applied this system to determine the differential roles of the type I interferon (IFN) subtypes during chronic CHIKV infection. Results using IFN blocking antibodies revealed that mice lacking the IFNαs, but not IFNβ, show an increase in chronic RNA levels and the number of fibroblasts that survive CHIKV infection in distal sites, indicating that type I IFNs have divergent roles during chronic CHIKV disease. Ongoing studies will explore the differential functions of IFNαs and IFNβ, will determine why the surviving cells and viral RNA are not cleared by the immune system, and will elucidate their contribution to chronic inflammation. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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