Fig 5. Dissemination and replication of ZIKV I-44 in tissue extremities of Control and Starve Ae. aegypti HWE following ingestion or intrathoracic injection of virus.
(A) Starve and Control mosquitoes were fed a blood-meal containing 4.5x105 PFU/mL ZIKV and virus was quantified in heads at 10 days post infection (dpi) (n = 19–28 per group/timepoint) and 14 dpi (n = 21–28 per group/timepoint) by plaque assay on Vero cells. Mann-Whitney U-test was used for statistical comparison; ** = p ≤ 0.01. Dots represent individual head tissues. (B) ZIKV was quantified in head tissue and carcasses of Starve and Control mosquitoes at 10 days post-intrathoracic injection of virus (around 140 PFU per mosquito; n = 20–21 per group). Outliers are shown as grey dots and were not included in the statistical analysis. T-test was used for statistical analysis (** = p ≤ 0.01, *** = p ≤ 0.001). Boxplots represent median titre, upper and lower quartiles with whiskers showing data extremities.