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Updated: Jul 25, 2025
An Electroporation Method to Transform Rickettsia spp. with a Fluorescent Protein-Expressing Shuttle Vector in Tick Cell Lines
Published on: October 11, 2022
Experimental infection of tick cells with Nipah virus
W H Phoon1, L Bell-Sakyi2, S AbuBakar3
1Department of Medical Microbiology, Universiti Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Abstract:
Nipah virus (NiV), a highly pathogenic henipavirus of the family Paramyxoviridae, which causes fatal encephalitis in 40-70% of affected patients, was first reported in Malaysia over 20 years ago. Pteropid bats are the natural hosts of henipaviruses, and ticks have been proposed as a possible link between bats and mammalian hosts. To investigate this hypothesis, infection of the tick cell line IDE8 with NiV was examined. Presence of viral RNA and antigen in the NiV-infected tick cells was confirmed. Infectious virions were recovered from NiV-infected tick cells and ultrastructural features of NiV were observed by electron microscopy. These results suggest that ticks could support NiV infection, potentially playing a role in transmission.
