Figure 7.

Critical Role of an Authentic 3′ UTR for VP Formation and Rescue of DENV Organelle Formation by the ZIKV 3′ SL

(A) Schematic representation of the 3′ terminal regions of used constructs containing or not containing the HDV ribozyme. Sites of RNA cleavage are indicated with arrows.

(B) TEM images of Huh7/Lunet-T7 cells transfected with the given pIRO-D constructs. Cells were transfected and, 20 h later, fixed, processed, and embedded in resin for sectioning. Upper panel scale bar: 500 nm. Lower panels are magnifications of yellow squared areas in the upper panel images. Yellow arrowheads indicate individual VPs. Lower panel scale bar: 200 nm.

(C) For each condition, VPs contained in whole-cell sections from 20 cells were counted. Means ± SEM from three independent quantifications are given. ^∗∗p < 0.01. n.d., not detectable.

(D) Schematic representation of the 3′ terminal regions of the DENV constructs containing only the 3′ SL or the complete 3′ UTR of ZIKV (left and right, respectively).

(E) TEM images of Huh7/Lunet-T7 cells transfected with the constructs specified at the top of each panel. Cells were transfected and, 20 h later, fixed, processed, and embedded in resin for sectioning. Upper panel scale bar: 500 nm. Lower panels are magnifications of yellow squared areas in the upper panel images. Yellow arrowheads indicate individual VPs. Lower panel scale bar: 100 nm.

(F) For each condition, VPs contained in whole-cell sections from 20 cells were counted. Means ± SEM from three independent quantifications are given. ^∗p < 0.1; n.s., not significant; n.d., non-detectable.