Figure 6.

Proposed model of cell type-specific interactions in Tha-infected human cultures consisting of neurons, astrocytes, and microglia. Tha productively infects neurons (yellow) and astrocytes (green), whereas microglia (blue) are not susceptible to Tha infection in vitro (Figure 2). Further, astrocytes and neurons strongly induce expression of innate immune genes upon challenge with Tha virus (Figure 3 and Figure 4). In contrast, P- and M-proteins of Tha inhibit the induction of innate immune genes in neurons (Figure 3). Additionally, we show that the transfer culture medium of Tha-infected astrocytes and microglia protects neurons from Tha infection (Figure 5). Green arrows indicate productive infection while the red arrow indicates abortive infection.