Sindbis virus infectivity improves during the course of infection in both mammalian and mosquito cells

Alphaviruses are enveloped, single-stranded positive sense RNA viruses that are transmitted by an arthropod vector to a wide host range, including avian and mammalian species. Arthropods and vertebrates have different cellular environments and this may cause the different cellular pathologies that are observed between the invertebrate vector and vertebrate hosts in both whole organisms and cultured cell lines. In this report, we used Sindbis virus and examined mosquito and mammalian cell lines for their ability to produce progeny virus particles. Total particles produced, viral titers, and overall infectivity (or the ratio of total particles-to-infectious particles) was investigated. Our results show (1) Sindbis infectivity is more a function of the host cell used in titering the virus rather than the cell line used to produce the virus, (2) the number of total and infectious particles produced is cell line dependent, and (3) the infectivity of released virus particles improves during the course of infection in both cells that have cytolytic infections and persistent infections.

► The cell line used to produce Sindbis virus plays a minimal role in Sindbis infectivity.
► The number of total and infectious Sindbis virus particles produced is cell line dependent.
► The infectivity of Sindbis virus particles improves during the course of infection in six cell lines tested.