Abstract
The biogenesis events and formation of dengue virus (DENV) in the infected host cells remain incompletely understood. In the present study, we examined the ultrastructural changes associated with DENV-2 replication in three susceptible host cells, C6/36, Vero and SK Hep1, a cell line of human endothelial origin, using transmission electron microscopy, whole-mount grid-cell culture techniques and electron tomography (ET). The prominent feature in C6/36 cells was the formation of large perinuclear vacuoles with mature DENV particles, and on-grid whole-mount examination of the infected Vero cells showed different forms of DENV core structures associated with cellular membranes within 48 h after infection. Distinct multivesicular structures and prominent autophagic vesicles were seen in the infected SK Hep1 cells when compared with the other two cell lines. ET showed the three-dimensional organization of these vesicles as a continuous system. This is the first report of ET-based analysis of DENV-2 replication in a human endothelial cell line. These results further emphasizes the strong role played by intracellular host membranes-virus interactions in the biogenesis of DENV and strongly argues for the possibility of targeting compounds to block such structure formation as key anti-dengue agents.