Mosquito immune cells enhance dengue and Zika virus dissemination in <i>Aedes aegypti</i>.

ABSTRACT: Mosquito-borne viruses cause more than 400 million annual infections and place over half of the world's population at risk. Despite this importance, the mechanisms by which arboviruses infect the mosquito host and disseminate to tissues required for transmission are not well understood. Here, we provide evidence that mosquito immune cells, known as hemocytes, play an integral role in the dissemination of dengue virus (DENV) and Zika virus (ZIKV) in the mosquito Aedes aegypti. We establish that phagocytic hemocytes are a focal point for virus infection and demonstrate that these immune cell populations facilitate virus dissemination to the ovaries and salivary glands. Additional transfer experiments confirm that virus-infected hemocytes confer a virus infection to non-infected mosqui

SUBMITTER: Hall DR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11014501 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature