Ultrastructure of Zika virus particles in cell cultures

• Published in: Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz Vol. 111; no. 8
• Main Authors: Barreto-Vieira, Debora Ferreira, Barth, Ortrud Monika, da Silva, Marcos Alexandre Nunes, Santos, Carolina Cardoso, Santos, Aline da Silva, Filho, Joaquim Batista F, de Filippis, Ana Maria Bispo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Fiocruz 08-02-2017
• Subjects: cell culture; transmission electron microscopy; virus particles; Zika virus
• ISSN: 1678-8060

Zika virus (ZIKV) has infected thousands of Brazilian people and spread
to other American countries since 2015. The introduction of ZIKV
brought a strong impact to public health in Brazil. It is of utmost
importance to identify a susceptible cell line that will enable the
isolation and identification of the virus from patient samples, viral
mass production, and testing of drug and vaccine candidates. Besides
real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction diagnosis for
detecting the viral genome, virus isolation in cell lines was useful in
order to study the structure of the viral particle and its behaviour
inside cells. Analysis of ZIKV infected cell lines was achieved using
transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Blood was obtained from a
Brazilian patient during the first days after presenting with signs of
the disease, and ZIKV from the patient's blood was isolated in
the C6/36 mosquito cell line. Afterwards, Vero cells were inoculated
with the viral suspension, fixed six days after inoculation, embedded
in polymers, and ultra-thin cut. Like dengue viruses, this flavivirus
showed numerous virus particles present inside cellular vesicles
thereby confirming the susceptibility of the Vero cell line to ZIKV
replication. TEM is a unique technique available to make the virus
visible.