Fig. 4: Supplementing a DENV-2 or ZIKV blood meal with hAAT in adult female Aedes aegypti (ORL) mosquitoes inhibits the rapid induction of apoptosis in the midgut at 2hpi and increases subsequent midgut viral replication.

a Workflow of the apoptosis inhibitor co-feeding experiment, hpi=hours post infection, dpi=days post infection. b–c TUNEL-positive cell counts in midguts from mosquitoes fed a b ZIKV (n (naive) = 22; n (ZIKV) = 18; n (ZIKV + hAAT) = 22) or c DENV-2-infected blood meal or a virus-infected blood meal supplemented with 10 mg/mL hAAT (n (naive) = 21; n (DENV-2) = 18; n (DENV-2 + hAAT) = 15). Treatments without a common letter were found to be statistically significant (α = 0.05) as calculated by Kruskal–Wallis test with Mann–Whitney post hoc test (panel a: Kruskal–Wallis chi-squared = 32.532, df = 2, p value = 8.624e-08; b Kruskal–Wallis chi-squared = 26.513, df = 2, p value = 1.749e-06) d–e ΔCT values from RT-qPCR detecting d ZIKV (n (ZIKV) = 34; n (ZIKV + hAAT) = 40) or e DENV-2 genome copy in whole mosquitoes 48 hours after an infected blood meal with or without 10 mg/mL hAAT (n (DENV-2) = 29; n (DENV-2 + hAAT) = 25). The horizontal line indicates the median. Treatments without a common letter were found to be statistically significant (α = 0.05) as calculated by Mann–Whitney U test (d W = 905, p value = 1.735e-08; e W = 466, p value = 0.006808). f Productive midgut infection quantified by midgut plaque assay at 7 days after feeding on a ZIKV or DENV-2-infected blood meal (n (ZIKV) = 34; n (ZIKV + hAAT) = 40; n (DENV-2) = 29; n (DENV-2 + hAAT) = 25)). Treatments without a common letter were found to be statistically significant (α = 0.05) as calculated by Mann–Whitney U test (ZIKV W = 608, p value = 1.102e-12; DENV-2 W = 1228.5, p value = 0.001929).