Figure 3
ZIKV virus infection in AG129 mice is associated with a strong T-cell response to ZIKV Env peptide 1 which is crossreactive with variant peptides from other flavivirus species. AG129 mice were (i) mock infected (n = 4) or (ii) infected intraperitoneally with 105 FFU of ZIKV (PF13/251013-18) (n = 5). (A) Mock (grey circles) and ZIKV infected (black circles) mice were monitored daily for signs of weight loss and culled at 7 days post infection. (B) ZIKV RNA load was quantified by real time PCR. Splenocytes from both groups of mice were assayed by IFNγ ELISpot for recall responses to (C) ZIKV proteins Env, NS1, NS3 and NS5, (D) an overlapping panel of 50 Env peptides and flavivirus variant peptides from west nile virus (WNV), yellow fever virus (YFV), dengue virus 1 (D1), dengue virus 2 (D2), dengue virus 3 (D3) and dengue virus 4 (D4) for peptides 1 (E) and 31 (H). Data are plotted as number of spot forming cells (SFC) per 106 cells for individual mice. Responses were considered positive (+) if the response was greater than 2 SD above the mean of the response in the absence of any antigen (shown as horizontal dotted line). ELISpot supernatants from peptide 1 variants were also collected prior to assay development and levels of IL-17A (F) and IL-10 (G) measured by ELISA. Data shown represent mean ± SEM.
