Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus Infection of Spiny Rats

Autor: Anne-Sophie Carrara, Marta Gonzales, Cristina Ferro, Margarita Tamayo, Judith Aronson, Slobodan Paessler, Michael Anishchenko, Jorge Boshell, Scott C. Weaver
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2005
Předmět:
Zdroj: Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol 11, Iss 5, Pp 663-669 (2005)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1080-6040
1080-6059
DOI: 10.3201/eid1105.041251
Popis: Enzootic strains of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) circulate in forested habitats of Mexico, Central, and South America, and spiny rats (Proechimys spp.) are believed to be the principal reservoir hosts in several foci. To better understand the host-pathogen interactions and resistance to disease characteristic of many reservoir hosts, we performed experimental infections of F1 progeny from Proechimys chrysaeolus collected at a Colombian enzootic VEEV focus using sympatric and allopatric virus strains. All animals became viremic with a mean peak titer of 3.3 log10 PFU/mL, and all seroconverted with antibody titers from 1:20 to 1:640, which persisted up to 15 months. No signs of disease were observed, including after intracerebral injections. The lack of detectable disease and limited histopathologic lesions in these animals contrast dramatically with the severe disease and histopathologic findings observed in other laboratory rodents and humans, and support their role as reservoir hosts with a long-term coevolutionary relationship to VEEV.
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