Infection of an Aedes aegypti cell line with infectious arbovirus-antibody complexes

Aedes aegypti cells exposed to infectious complexes of WN or YF virus and homologous antiserum produced lower yields of virus over a 10-day observation period than were produced by Aedes aegypti cells treated with a comparable dose of virus mixed with non-immune serum. When Ae. aegypti cells were infected with WN virus mixed with MVE, NTA, DEN-2 or YF antisera the virus yield over 10 days was lower than in cell cultures infected at similar titres with mixtures of WN virus with non-immune serum. If Ae. aegypti cell cultures were infected with mixtures of YF virus and WN or DEN-2 antiserum the resulting production of virus was lower over 10 days than in virus mixed with non-immune serum. Human serum samples from the field were tested for the presence of antibody by preincubation of the serum with WN virus prior to inoculation on to mosquito cell cultures. The results indicated that this method is as sensitive in detecting antibody as a mouse neutralization test using regression analysis of average survival time.