Growth characteristics and cytokine/chemokine induction profiles of dengue viruses in various cell lines

Abstract

The dengue disease varies clinically from mild fever to hemorrhagic fever up to potentially fatal shock syndrome. Such differences in manifestation of dengue virus (DENV) infection have been ascribed to intrinsic differences in DENVs. Four DENV serotypes or four dengue viruses (DENV-1 to DENV-4) have been clearly distinguished; however, only limited information is available on their biological characteristics in vitro. To shed more light on this subject, replication kinetics of all four DENVs in various cell lines and induction of 26 cytokines/chemokines were investigated. The results showed that, (i) all DENVs replicated relatively similarly in various cell lines, (ii) DENV-1 was most effective in this regard, (iii) A549 cells showed the highest virus replication rate compared to other cells, and (iv) all DENVs induced in A549 cells similar levels of several cytokines/chemokines, namely eotaxin, granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), interferon alpha 2 (IFN-α2), interleukins 6, 8 15 (IL-6, IL-8, IL-15), and IP-10. In conclusion, this study revealed a similarity in growth characteristics and cytokine/chemokine induction profile for all four DENV serotypes in vitro.