Figure 1.

In vivo rescue of rZIKV from Vero cells transfected with the BAC cDNA clone. (A) Schematic representation of rZIKV in vivo rescue approach using transfected Vero cells. (B–D) Four-to-five-week-old IFNAR−/− A129 male (N = 3) and female (N = 3) mice were inoculated SC in the footpad (top), IM in the quadriceps muscle (middle) or IP in the peritoneal cavity (bottom) with 1 × 10⁶ Vero cells/mouse transfected with pBAC-ZIKV. Body weight (B) and survival (C) were evaluated during 18 dpi. Mice that lost more than 20% of their initial body weight or presented hind limb paralysis were humanely euthanized. Error bars represent standard deviations (SD) of the mean for each group of mice. Mice were bled at 3 and 6 dpi and viral titers in sera were determined by immunofocus assay (FFU/ml) (D). Symbols represent data from individual mice and bars the geometric means of viral titers. *Virus not detected in one mouse; &, virus not detected in two mice; ND, not detected. Dotted black lines indicate the limit of detection, LoD (200 FFU/ml). No statistically significant differences between the SC, IM and IP routes of inoculation of transfected cells were observed.