Figure 8. Autophagosomes in VZV-infected cells.

Autophagosomes are present in the skin vesicles during both varicella and zoster. Autophagy is required for the replication of varicella zoster virus (VZV), and replication is enhanced when autophagy is induced. Autophagy can be quantitated by enumeration of autophagosomes¹⁹⁴. The figure illustrates a monolayer of VZV-infected cells labelled with antibodies against a VZV protein (IE62 protein; red) and autophagosomes (LC3–II protein; green); nuclei were stained blue with Hoechst 33342. The monolayer was imaged by confocal microscopy, after which the confocal images were converted into a 3D animation by Imaris software. A single frame from the animation is shown in the figure¹⁹⁵. Autophagosomes (~100) appear as green dots against the background of blue nuclei (~70). Many of the nuclei are clustered within a syncytium of VZV-infected cells (red cytoplasm). By contrast, only the nuclei of uninfected cells are visible in this image, as the cytoplasm of uninfected cells is not stained.