Figure 7.

Primary human cervical cells are susceptible to ZIKV infection. (A,B) Primary human cervical cells from 15 donors were infected with ZIKV-PR (MOI: 0.1 or 0.5). After infection, the cells were extensively washed and culture for four days. Four days post-infection, the culture supernatant was subjected to qRT-PCR to measure viral RNA copy numbers. (C) To determine infectivity, the cultured supernatant collected from the primary cells infected with ZIKV-PR (n = 5) was used as inoculum to infect Vero cells. The absolute RNA copy number was determined by subjecting the supernatant collected from Vero cells to qPCR analysis. (D) In addition to qPCR analysis, active viral production was examined by performing IFA on Vero cells infected by the inoculum. The Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test was used to analyze the significance of viral replication.