Real-time whole-body visualization of Chikungunya Virus infection and host interferon response in zebrafish

Nuno Palha, Florence Guivel-Benhassine, Valerie Briolat, Georges Lutfalla, Marion Sourisseau, Felix Ellett, Chieh-Huei Wang, Graham Lieschke, Philippe Herbomel, Olivier Schwartz, Jean-Pierre Levraud

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129 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Chikungunya Virus (CHIKV), a re-emerging arbovirus that may cause severe disease, constitutes an important public health problem. Herein we describe a novel CHIKV infection model in zebrafish, where viral spread was live-imaged in the whole body up to cellular resolution. Infected cells emerged in various organs in one principal wave with a median appearance time of approximately 14 hours post infection. Timing of infected cell death was organ dependent, leading to a shift of CHIKV localization towards the brain. As in mammals, CHIKV infection triggered a strong type-I interferon (IFN) response, critical for survival. IFN was mainly expressed by neutrophils and hepatocytes. Cell type specific ablation experiments further demonstrated that neutrophils play a crucial, unexpected role in CHIKV containment. Altogether, our results show that the zebrafish represents a novel valuable model to dynamically visualize replication, pathogenesis and host responses to a human virus.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1 - 15
Number of pages15
JournalPLoS Pathogens
Volume9
Issue number9 (Art. No.: e1003619)
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2013

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