Figure 3.

Corneal epithelial cells are permissive to CHIKV infection and PVP-I exposure attenuates viral replication. Human corneal epithelial cells (HUCL cell line) seeded on lab-tek chamber slides were infected with CHIKV at different MOIs (0.1, 1 and 5) for 12 h followed by immunofluorescence staining (A) and quantitation of viral antigen-positive cells (B). In another experiment 12 h CHIKV-infected (MOI 0.1) HUCL cells were incubated with varying concentrations of PVP-I for one minute. After PVP-I exposure, cells were rinsed and allowed to grow for 24 h in a fresh medium. Viral replication was determined by immunofluorescence staining (C) and quantification of CHIKV antigen-positive cells (D), plaque assay (E), and assessment of viral RNA copy number by qPCR (F). One-way ANOVA Dunnett’s test was used for statistical analysis wherein, *** p < 0.001; ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.