Increased Ifng and Il10 Expression Correlate with Disease in Rodent Models Experimentally Infected with Modoc Virus

• Published in: Viruses Vol. 14; no. 5; p. 1026
• Main Authors: Sherman, Tyler J, Petty, Douglas, Schountz, Tony, Hodges, Natasha, Hawkinson, Ann C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 11-05-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Animal models; Animals; Brain research; Cricetinae; Cytokines; Dengue fever; flavivirus; Flavivirus - genetics; Gene expression; Genomes; Infections; Interferon-gamma; Interleukin 1; Interleukin 10; Interleukin-10 - genetics; Kidneys; Mesocricetus; Multivariate analysis; Overexpression; Pathogens; Peromyscus; Public health; RNA, Viral - genetics; Rodentia; Species; Spleen; Tropism; Urine; Viruses; West Nile virus; United States > US; Mesocricetus; Peromyscus; interferon-gamma; interleukin-10; gene expression; flavivirus; rodent-borne virus
• ISSN: 1999-4915; 1999-4915
• DOI: 10.3390/v14051026

Flaviviruses present an ongoing threat to global public health, although the factors that contribute to the disease remain incompletely understood. We examined an acute Modoc virus (MODV) infection of two rodent models. Viral RNA was detected in the kidneys, spleen, liver, brain, urine, and sera of experimentally infected deer mice, a reservoir host of MODV, and Syrian hamsters, a known disease model. As expected, clinical outcomes differed between species, and the levels of viral RNA recovered from various tissues demonstrated signs of differential replication and tissue tropism. Multivariate analysis indicated significance in the profile of expressed genes between species when analyzed across tissues and over time (
= 0.02). Between-subject effects with corrected models revealed a significance specific to the expression of
(
= 0.01). the expression of
was elevated in hamsters as compared to deer mice in brain tissues at all timepoints. As the over-expression of
has been shown to correlate with decreased vascular integrity, the findings presented here offer a potential mechanism for viral dissemination into the CNS. The expression of
also differed significantly between species at certain timepoints in brain tissues; however, it is uncertain how increased expression of this cytokine may influence the outcome of MODV-induced pathology.