{"id":13891,"date":"2017-12-14T07:39:23","date_gmt":"2017-12-14T07:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=13891"},"modified":"2017-12-14T07:39:23","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T07:39:23","slug":"monkeys-infected-mosquito-bites-zika-virus-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/monkeys-infected-mosquito-bites-zika-virus-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Monkeys infected by mosquito bites further Zika virus research"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A vacuum tube holds a blood-fed strain of Aedes aegypti mosquito in place under a microscope. PHOTO: JEFF MILLER<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Monkeys who catch Zika virus through bites from infected mosquitoes develop infections that look like human Zika cases, and may help researchers understand the many ways Zika can be transmitted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison infected rhesus macaques at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center with Zika virus one of two ways: by allowing mosquitoes carrying the virus to feed on the monkeys or by injecting virus under the skin, the common method for infecting animals in laboratory studies.<\/span><\/p>\n

The differences between the resulting infections \u2014\u00a0reported today<\/a>\u00a0(Dec. 13, 2017) in the journal Nature Communications \u2014 were subtle, but will be useful as scientists continue to learn more about Zika after a high-profile epidemic in the Americas caused grave birth defects.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Matthew Aliota, assistant scientist in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine, works with a strain of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes stored in a research lab insectary in the Hanson Biomedical Sciences Building. Aliota is an expert on mosquito-borne pathogens such as the Zika virus, dengue fever and yellow fever infections. PHOTO: JEFF MILLER<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important in a laboratory setting to understand the difference between mosquito transmission and sexual transmission and needle inoculation,\u201d says\u00a0Matthew Aliota<\/a>, a UW\u2013Madison research professor of pathobiological sciences and one of the authors of the new study. \u201cBut better understanding these transmission routes is also important from a broader standpoint in terms of prevention and severity of disease and risk factors involved with certain behavior.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The infection progressed faster in needle-inoculated monkeys \u2014 who had plenty of virus in their blood within two or three days \u2014 than in the mosquito-bitten subjects.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a difference of a couple days to what we call peak viremia,\u201d says Dawn Dudley, a UW\u2013Madison pathology research scientist. \u201cBut we still get robust infection with both methods of inoculation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Just why the mosquito-borne infection takes longer is unclear, and the mechanics and chemistry of mosquito bites are complicated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe biology of the disease probably depends a lot on how the mosquitoes transmit that disease \u2014 mechanically how they do it, and biologically what comes along with the virus when the mosquito bites,\u201d says Tom Friedrich, a UW\u2013Madison professor of pathobiological sciences.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Dawn Dudley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti, the primary Zika-carrying species of mosquito, make shallow jabs through human skin with their mouthparts until they break open tiny blood vessels. Then they eat.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEach time it probes, it\u2019s spitting into your skin,\u201d says Aliota, whose work is funded by the National Institutes of Health. \u201cIdeally for the mosquito, it\u2019s going to find and rupture a capillary bed, and cause a hemorrhagic pool just under the skin. And that\u2019s when it\u2019s going to start ingesting blood and spitting saliva at the same time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The precise depth of the probing and the effect of the mosquito\u2019s saliva \u2014 which keeps blood from coagulating and inhibits the immune response \u2014 are just a few likely factors separating a bite from any other method of Zika transmission.<\/span><\/p>\n

The researchers found Zika spread nearly as wide in mosquito-infected monkeys as needle-infected animals, though the monkeys who had been bitten were less likely to have the virus invade central nervous system tissues like the eye or brain. Reproductive tract tissues \u2014 of particular interest given the virus\u2019s most visible symptoms \u2014 were infected in both groups of animals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat reflects what we\u2019re seeing epidemiologically in people \u2014 at least in infected adults \u2014 who don\u2019t often have evidence of infection in their central nervous system and in their brain,\u201d Aliota says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The researchers brought uninfected mosquitoes back to feed on the monkeys when the animals were near the peak of their infections, but none of the macaques in the study developed an infection virulent enough to pass virus back to the biting mosquitoes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing we don\u2019t understand about Zika virus is whether there\u2019s an animal reservoir the virus can survive in, apart from the mosquitoes and humans we\u2019re studying,\u201d Dudley says. \u201cThese rhesus macaques did not seem to generate a high enough viral load to allow infection of a mosquito that could transmit it to another host, but that doesn\u2019t mean other non-human primates couldn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monkeys who catch Zika virus through bites from infected mosquitoes develop infections that look like human Zika cases, and may help researchers understand the many ways Zika can be transmitted. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison infected rhesus macaques at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center with Zika virus one of two ways: by allowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,26,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology","category-medicine","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",95,63,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",500,333,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",96,64,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Aliota_mosquito16_4933-500x333.jpg",150,100,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Biology<\/a> Medicine<\/a> Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}