TY - JOUR AU - Smith, Darci AU - Aguilar, Patricia AU - Coffey, Lark AU - Gromowski, Gregory AU - Wang, Eryu AU - Vasilakis, Nikos T1 - Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus Transmission and Effect on Pathogenesis T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2006 VL - 12 IS - 8 SP - 1190 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Quantifying the dose of an arbovirus transmitted by mosquitoes is essential for designing pathogenesis studies simulating natural infection of vertebrates. Titration of saliva collected in vitro from infected mosquitoes may not accurately estimate titers transmitted during blood feeding, and infection by needle injection may affect vertebrate pathogenesis. We compared the amount of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus collected from the saliva of Aedes taeniorhynchus to the amount injected into a mouse during blood feeding. Less virus was transmitted by mosquitoes in vivo (geometric mean 11 PFU) than was found for comparable times of salivation in vitro (mean saliva titer 74 PFU). We also observed slightly lower early and late viremia titers in mice that were needle injected with 8 PFU, which represents the low end of the in vivo transmission range. No differences in survival were detected, regardless of the dose or infection route. KW - Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus KW - arbovirus KW - alphavirus KW - mosquito KW - saliva KW - transmission KW - research KW - United States KW - Venezuela DO - 10.3201/eid1208.050841 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/8/05-0841_article ER - End of Reference